


Nights and Weekends

by eravana



Category: Logan Lucky (2017)
Genre: Clyde Logan Is A Slow Typist, F/M, Flirting Via Phone, I Don't Even Know, Implied Violence, Long-Distance Friendship, Long-Distance Relationship, Mellie Logan is your wingwoman, Merry fucking Christmas, Outdoor Sex, Phone Sex, Slow Burn, Soft Clyde Is Soft, Trailer Sex, Wedding Fluff, it’s a thing, soft!Clyde
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2019-10-26 08:08:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 52,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17742155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eravana/pseuds/eravana
Summary: Desperate to earn the final credits you need to pass your online degree course, you're paired up to work on your dissertation with the only student who contributes to lectures less than you do.  You worry it'll be a disaster, until the quiet, enigmatic barman works his way into your heart one message at a time.





	1. Chapter 1

“Okay, I’m splitting the group into pairs for the next assignment. You’ll work closely for the next four and a half months to produce a dissertation on a chosen piece of work. Choices remain, as always, entirely up to you. Watch the screen to see your pairing.” Julian, your course coordinator, had the kind of accent that could strip paint from walls, and you winced as his tinny words buzzed through your headphones.

Virtual classrooms were just as intimidating as three-dimensional ones, of this you were sure. You’d realised this quickly when you’d signed up for “Comparative Literature and Philosophy” - it hadn’t been by choice as such, more that it was the only course that had available spaces that carried the necessary number of credits to get you through your online degree and finally qualified for... something. You weren’t sure what, yet. From the first day of the course Julian had placed heavy demands on each student – lectures, despite being held entirely online, were not optional. Attendance was compulsory, as was contributing in some way to each lesson. It had been difficult, awkward even, in the early lectures when he’d encouraged his students to type their thoughts into the classroom’s chatbox, but slowly most of the students had overcome any shyness or awkwardness and soon had begun to type in notes or comments while Julian spoke over the mic, raising questions or contributing discussion points. Most of the students, excluding you. While you were happy to add small notes like “yeah I agree” or “sorry can you elaborate?” to your fellow students’ comments, you found it difficult to gather your thoughts enough to contribute anything more substantial or enlightening. In truth, you were struggling with the course and you knew it. You pitied whoever ended up stuck with you for the dissertation.

You reached for your soda and chewed at the tattered straw as you waited to be assigned your project partner. The screen names you’d become all too familiar with three evenings each week for the last six months started to move into couples; GloriaSunshine matched with FoucaultYouHoez69 (“ooh, lucky Gloria” you chewed, spitting a bit of plastic off your tongue to get lost somewhere on your desk), CampbellBNZ’s screen name moved to pair up with chrissyboye123, JackJone5 with damngoodcupofcoffee, Delorean85 with AnnieBlue22. Then it was your turn, and you watched as the course coordinator moved your screen name to its partner - RobertaSparrow paired with DuckTapeWV. You couldn’t help the groan of disappointment that escaped your mouth along with the straw you’d been chewing – DuckTapeWV was the only other student who contributed less than you did, and you wondered whether Julian had paired the two of you deliberately to kill two birds with one stone.

“You’ll be expected to set up your own mini-classrooms so you can work together, voice chat is optional but highly recommended - I’m sure you’ve all really enjoyed the feature over the last six months spent with me! You have six weeks to work on an initial chapter outline - it may sound like a long time but I assure you all that under these circumstances it is no time at all. I’m here whenever you need advice, now go forth and create!” Julian’s voice suddenly cut out and you watched as the virtual classroom window closed, leaving you in a different classroom chat window, with only yours and your new partner’s names listed. You stared at the blank window for a few moments while you drained your soda, your headphones blocking out most of the noise of the ruined straw as you sucked up the last of the lukewarm Coke you’d poured earlier. Realising that your new work partner was not going to break the ice first, you dragged your keyboard a little closer to you and began to type.

[RobertaSparrow]: Hello, friend.  
[DuckTapeWV]: hi  
[RobertaSparrow]: So... how do you feel about this? I don’t remember reading anything about paired work or a mini-dissertation in the course guide...

To be honest, you’d barely looked at the course description when you had signed up, more concerned with the number of credits it would give you. You tapped your chewed-up straw against your teeth while you waited for Mr/Ms Tape to respond; every so often you saw the little pen icon jiggle in the window which meant they were typing, but nothing ever came up in the window. You refilled your glass and eyeballed the screen before giving up and typing again. 

[RobertaSparrow]: Still there?  
[DuckTapeWV]: yeah sorry I type slow. 

Brilliant, just brilliant.

[DuckTapeWV]: whats your name?  
[DuckTapeWV] im clyde

You tapped your teeth with your straw as the person formerly known as DuckTapeWV offered their – his – name to you. Clyde, like the river. You tapped your name into the chatbox alongside a waving hand emoji and hit send, and a few moments later Clyde’s own waving hand emoji popped up below yours.

\------------

He wasn’t lying when he said he was slow at typing. You spent most of the next couple of hours watching the little pen icon flash while Clyde responded to your “Get To Know Me 101” messages. Despite the typing delay, during that time you’d learned a few things:

\- Clyde was taking the course for the same reasons as you, he just wanted to get enough credits to finish the online degree and then move onto something else.  
\- He also didn’t know what he wanted to do next.  
\- He had an older brother, and a younger sister.  
\- He ran a bar, and didn’t sleep much.

[RobertaSparrow]: Do you study after work or before?  
[DuckTapeWV]: After – don’t need much sleep  
[DuckTapeWV]: what do you do?  
[RobertaSparrow]: I’m a classroom assistant in a small school. I have a lot of free time when school finishes, so try to get as much study done then.  
[DuckTapeWV]: do you want to bea teacher?  
[RobertaSparrow]: I have absolutely no idea.

You were pretty sure teaching was the last thing you wanted to do, but you weren't going to admit that to him right now. The little pen icon blinked again, then stopped. No more words appeared from Clyde. You leaned back in your chair and stretched, conscious of the knots that were forming in your shoulders and neck thanks to leaning over your tiny, ancient laptop. Looking over the small box room you called an office, you saw your clock blinking out 00:17am. 

[RobertaSparrow]: hey Clyde, I gotta go get some beauty sleep.  
[DuckTapeWV]: oh ok  
[RobertaSparrow]: I’ll talk to you tomorrow, maybe we can make a start on the assignment, pick a text?  
[DuckTapeWV]: ok sure. talk to you tomorrow.  
[RobertaSparrow]: Wait when are you working? What time suits you best?  
[DuckTapeWV]: I don’t need to be in the bar until later tomorrow. 5pm ok?  
[RobertaSparrow]: 5pm is fine. See you then.

It wasn’t until you’d showered and climbed into bed that you realised you’d done precisely no work this evening, not since you’d been moved into the separate chatroom with Clyde. Somehow the two of you would have to dig up enough motivation to not only put this dissertation together, but make it shit-hot enough to get you both the credits you needed to graduate. Given the fact that he doesn’t seem to say much and you don’t say anything relating to the topic at hand, you were pretty sure you’d both need a miracle to get this project afloat. With that worry niggling at your brain, you tossed and turned into a fitful, unfulfilling sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Clyde Logan was, by his own admission, not the most forthcoming of men. He had always preferred to keep his own council, especially growing up with Jimmy and Mellie who always seemed to have more than enough words spilling out for all of them put together. Some people mistook his quietness for stupidity - he wasn’t simple minded in the slightest, and had the world not taken a shift off its axis in the early 2000’s and had him headed into the army he may well have tried his luck with a scholarship and applied to college in Athens, GA like his teachers had told him to. That life wasn’t for him, not back then, and when the Logan curse struck and sent him home from the Middle East with half an arm missing he resigned himself to a life of wiping up the sticky bar and re-felting the pool table in Duck Tape. He didn’t mind it, not really - he had a trailer full of books (more space for books since Jimmy moved out to be closer to Sadie), the Duck Tape regulars were entertaining, and since the you-know-what had all worked out fine he had enough cash to do pretty much whatever he felt.

Eighteen months ago, “whatever he felt” meant signing up for one of the online college classes he saw advertised on a bus somewhere outside Madison. The University of Georgia offered them as a way of improving flexibility for those students who couldn’t attend on-campus, and paying the fees up front meant that if he didn’t like it he could just walk away and take the hit on his more than healthy bank balance. In the year-and-a-half since he first saw the bright orange advert plastered on the side of the Madison bus, he’d managed to complete almost a full undergraduate English Literature degree in a little over half the time it normally took, save for a few credits that he knew he could complete if he could just wrap his tired mind around Comparative Literature and Philosophy.

Mellie had taken one look at the course materials that had arrived in the mail and wrinkled her nose up in the same way as she did when she a saw a particularly tragic colour-job on a new client. She’d patted his shoulder and tottered off on her skyscraper heels to her next home-visit, and that was the end of that. It wasn’t that he’d expected her to really be interested, but a little halfhearted conversation about it would have been nice. 

Jimmy - well, Clyde knew he definitely didn’t want Jimmy getting too interested. Jimmy was smarter than he looked (and a lot smarter than he gave himself credit for), and it made Clyde nervous to imagine the scrapes Jimmy would get himself (and no doubt Clyde too) into if he had a qualification or two behind him. It was easier to not let Jimmy get too many ideas. So Clyde had stored the textbooks and leaflets away safely in his bedroom, bringing whatever he was currently assigned with him to the bar to work on when it was quiet, and somewhere along the line he’d realised he was actually pretty damn good at this studying thing and he wanted to do a lot more of it. Expanding his mind, without the aid of pharmaceuticals, was fun. 

This course, though. This course was a nightmare made all the worse by Julian’s sudden announcement that not only did they have four months to produce a dissertation, but they had to work on it in pairs. Nothing scared Clyde more than the phrase “group project”, not even “beer delivery cancelled” or “unexploded IED”. “Group project” meant having to work awkwardly side by virtual side with a stranger for weeks, sharing ideas and bits of his brain that even he wasn’t entirely comfortable with yet. It made his head hurt, and when his head hurt he typed even slower than usual, thanks to the dead weight prosthetic strapped to where his flesh and bone arm should have been. He really hadn’t thought typing through when he’d signed up for an online degree.

Despite the slowness of his typing and his preference to keep to himself when he could, he’d been cautiously pleased to have been paired up with RobertaSparrow for the dissertation. Firstly, because “Donnie Darko” had been his favourite film since he’d witnessed Jimmy crying in abject confusion at it, back when they’d watched it soon after Clyde had returned home from Iraq (“Maybe she’s right Clyde, maybe we can reduce everything down to fear or love!”), and secondly because she (he assumed Roberta was a she) kept to herself in the online classes almost as much as Clyde did. He appreciated someone who, unlike the other students on the course, didn’t need to pepper their contributions with emojis and pop-culture references he felt too old to understand; he was almost thirty-three now, and assumed Roberta to be roughly the same age. He caught himself imagining the two of them as mature, smart classroom superstars compared to the youthful ignorance of their colleagues more than once, and he wasn’t sure how that made him feel.

After their initial “meeting”, when they had both stayed up until midnight typing out nervous greetings, they’d decided to continue following the original class schedule, “meeting” in their little online classroom three times a week to go over chapter plans, text extracts, and vague research notions. She’d talked about visiting the “big library” in her nearest city to check out a few books that might help, and he’d spent hours holed up in the office at Duck Tape searching for articles on the computer there - it had a much larger monitor than his laptop, and he found it easier to read there. Plus, he wasn’t really ever in a rush to go home to an empty trailer, even if he did like to wind up Jimmy about how clean and fragrant it was now that he’d moved out. He’d recognised the itchy hot feeling at the base of his spine as loneliness once, and had resolutely decided not to investigate that feeling too closely again. Nothing good would come from that.

There was a chill in the air now, and as Clyde waited for the office computer to fire up he caught the calendar and realised that he and “Roberta” had been working together for five weeks. Their chapter outline had come together fairly quickly, and they’d even managed to pad out a couple of the chapter headings with section bulletpoints and chunks of research ideas. It was almost as if they knew what they were doing and were actually going to complete the assignment - Clyde was even enjoying the whole process.

Or maybe it was her company he was enjoying, limited as it was to bytes and pixels? Yes, he enjoyed discussing their work together, but his favourite times had been when they’d stayed up into the early hours talking about everything and nothing all at once. She’d shared stories of her job in the school, he’d told her about Earl’s ridiculous karaoke talent in the bar. She’d talked about her strained relationship with her family, he’d told her about his missing arm and how he’d lost it. 

[DuckTapeWV]: yeah i got blown up in Iraq. Left half of my arm there. Doing all this work one-handed.  
[RobertaSparrow]: Well... shit Clyde, that’s crappy. No wonder you type slow.  
[RobertaSparrow]: Is it bad I want to make a joke about the “shit hand you’ve been dealt”, or would that be really insensitive?

He had deliberately taken even longer than usual to respond, wanting to make her sweat a little.

[DuckTapeWV]: i mean it is pretty insensitive but I’m laughing so i guess it’s ok??

He’d howled laughing at that - _no fucking wonder indeed_ \- and from that moment the itchy lonely feeling that lived in the base of his spine gave way to something warmer and spicier and even more disconcerting. He liked her. Liked-liked her. Oh boy.


	3. Chapter 3

November 3rd. Your anniversary.

Or at least it would be your anniversary had you stayed married. You thanked whoever may have been watching over you back then that you’d dodged that bullet, or rather that the bullet had decided to dodge you.

Riley DeWitt had walked into your Scottish seaside fish and chip shop on a Saturday in early June looking like he’d walked straight out of an episode of The OC. He was all blonde hair and freckles on sunkissed skin with an accent that you were sure made your hair curl in pure delight. He’d asked for extra pickled onions on his portion of chips and you’d somehow managed to ignore the way his eyes watered when he crushed his teeth into their silvery skins, the vinegar setting his mouth alight in ways you knew you wanted to. You were eighteen, had just left school and you decided that Riley DeWitt was your ticket out of there.

What you hadn’t banked on was Riley being part of a super-devout religious sect who were travelling around “Scotchland” looking for willing converts. You’d never been religious; you vaguely remembered your Granny dragging you to church one Sunday but you’d screamed blue murder through the whole thing, and she’d refused to ever attempt to take you again. Still, you were sure you could overlook the whole God Squad thing if it meant Riley took you somewhere different. You were sick of hearing your friends talk about the universities they’d applied to, where they’d all be moving to in September leaving you behind to work the chippy until the tourist season ended and left you alone in town for a long dark winter. So, when Riley and his parents invited you to attend one of their gatherings in the campsite the following night, you jumped at the chance and made sure to wear the most demure-yet-sexy outfit you owned.

It took four short weeks to have Riley DeWitt eating from the palm of your hand. He followed you around like a muscled, tanned, Jesus-loving puppy while you worked in the chip shop and spent the evenings either attending his parents’ gatherings or walking along the harbour. He spoke about God a lot; you listened, but focused on the horizon and wondered whether, if your eyes were strong enough, would you be able to see right across the ocean to America? Probably not, there were islands in the way and the curvature of the planet didn’t help, but it was nice to dream. He’d walk you home and kiss you sloppily in the cobbled lane that ran between your house and the police station, and occasionally when his kisses got really heated he’d rub himself against your hipbone until he made a mess of himself in his Quiksilver shorts, but he’d told you in no uncertain terms that his _“penis was for Jesus”_ and wouldn’t be going near anyone until he was married.

It only took another five weeks for Riley to stop fighting his most carnal desires and do what needed to be done. To your surprise he’d ordered a cubic zirconia and Sterling silver engagement-style band from the Argos catalogue one day while you served up fish suppers to the locals, and when it arrived, he’d gone down on one gorgeously-tanned knee right there in the chippy and asked you to be his bride in Jesus’s name, amen. You’d squealed, chucked the chip-scoop over your shoulder and launched yourself at him, kissing his gorgeous chiselled face and agreeing to marry him as soon as it was humanly possible.

His parents were _thrilled_ , and after a couple of months spent organising the relevant spousal immigration forms and what-not you were married in the nearest town’s registry office on a cold November 3rd. It had been a wild day, full of flooding, thunder and lightning, and you’d wondered whether the bad weather could be considered a bad omen. “Bad omens are for the devil, missy, today is a blessed day!” your new mother-in-law had hissed in your ear. You weren’t convinced.

For two years you’d lived together in your little seaside town. Riley had taken a job on a fishing boat which you knew he hated, and at weekends he toured the surrounding villages with a half-size acoustic guitar singing sanitised Christian rock for local teenagers drunk on warm tinned lager and dying to find someone, anyone, to kiss. When his parents suggested that the two of you move to Oklahoma to be nearer to them, he’d barely ended the call before he was checking flight prices and looking at apartments to rent outside Tulsa. You were almost twenty-one years old, and you were finally reaching your dream of moving to America. You’d never been happier.

For five years you endured Tulsa. You endured Riley’s enormous family, their seemingly endless “missions” to places you’d never heard of and endured the concerned head-tilts from nosey aunts when they enquired about the state of your womb. Babies, babies, babies - it had been all they ever spoke of and it drove you mad. Riley, bless him, was enthusiastic and made every attempt under the sun to knock you up with little blonde-haired tiny versions of himself – he didn’t need to know the only thing you were religious about was making sure your Depo shot was kept up to date. As much as you liked Riley, cared for him even, you knew love was a long way off the mark and had no intention of providing him with another generation of DeWitt missionaries. He'd taken you to America, and you were happy to let him try his best to get you pregnant (he looked like a Greek god after all, it was no hardship), but you knew it wasn't _love-love_ , not the bone-shaking, world-tilting, sweaty palms and heart-in-your-mouth kind of love you'd always dreamt about. Your play-acting, make-believe relationship was no place to bring another person into.

The aunts became suspicious. They suggested that maybe your “genes weren’t good”, that maybe there was something wrong with either you or Riley. Soon their suspicions spread to the menfolk of the family who eyed you with confusion – here was a young married couple, virile and beautiful, why weren’t they popping out babies left right and centre? To them, it made no sense. In the winter of your fifth year in Tulsa, Riley’s father Brent, drunk on cold beer and scripture, cornered you in the kitchen during a congregation pot luck and made his suggestions plain – if Riley couldn’t get you in the family way, maybe _he_ could? He’d squeezed your breast roughly and pressed his clammy lips to your neck just in time to be caught in the act by his long-suffering wife who reacted just as you’d expected she would – she pursed her lips together tighter than a cat’s bum, spun on her heel and left the room with her casserole dish full of meatloaf and spite. 

The following days were agony. Riley’s father kept crying out of shame and regret that he’d been caught, his mother looked at you like she wished she could set you on fire with her eyes alone, and Riley paced around your apartment in a state of pure confusion. He loved you, sure, but they were his _parents_ \- he couldn’t take anyone’s side but theirs. As a way of making things up to you, he cleared out his savings account and gave you the cash in an envelope just before the cab came that would take you to the bus depot and then on to who knows where. You’d taken the envelope stuffed full with almost six thousand dollars in tattered bills, left your Argos rings on the table and jumped on a bus, then a train, then more buses and more trains until you’d woken up one morning weeks later in Burlington, Vermont, and decided that this place would do. 

Three and a half years had passed since you’d arrived in Burlington, and while you wouldn’t say you were ecstatic as such with how your life had turned out, you had fewer complaints than you’d had back in Tulsa. Your family back home in Scotland had been appalled to hear about _”your behaviour”_ when Riley’s mother had called to tell them that the marriage was over and they should expect you to arrive home with your tail between your legs any day now – knowing she’d done this only made you more determined to stay. Thankfully all your residence applications had been approved long ago and you’d gathered in a huge school gym one spring morning to pledge allegiance to the flag and thus been confirmed as a US citizen, meaning both families could just jump if they thought you’d be flying across the ocean any time soon. 

You worked hard in the local elementary school, where the little kids mooned over your accent and asked if you’d ever seen Nessie. You had a tiny cupboard of an apartment nearby and had made a couple of acquaintances in the local coffee shop, grocery store and bar. Life was quiet; you filled the empty spaces with browsing celebrity gossip blogs and watching too much Netflix, so it had only really been by chance that you’d seen a bright orange advert for online degree courses flashing on the side of your browser window one Sunday night. You’d had to check Google Maps to see where Athens was compared to where you were – bloody miles away - but the website stressed that all attendance would be virtual with no need to travel. You could take your time, dip in and out of courses, and see where the classes took you. Maybe it was the thought of yet another night spent watching crappy documentaries on Netflix, maybe it was the bulk of Riley’s money sitting in an account you hadn’t touched calling to you like a siren's song, who knows, but before you’d had a chance to give it too much thought you’d signed up, and so began your adventures in online learning.

Now it was November 3rd, you were twenty-eight and a half years old and were sitting up into the wee small hours most nights talking online to the man you were working with on the dissertation that might just get you a degree. The doubts and despair you’d felt over the first couple of nights that you’d been paired up had soon vanished – Clyde was _smart_ , albeit a bloody slow responder, but when he’d explained the whole hand-situation you’d become a lot more patient. You didn’t mind waiting when you knew that whatever Clyde lacked in speed, he more than made up for in answers and ideas. The two of you had constructed a damn good chapter outline and submitted it not just early but with a clear structure for each chapter, with research notes, links and further reading. Julian hadn’t been able to hide his surprise when you’d submitted it to him, and you and Clyde had stayed up until four the following morning chatting about anything other than the dissertation. To be honest, you’d started spending most nights online chatting to Clyde whenever he wasn’t working the late shift in his bar – he came across as being kind, whip-smart and funny, with a kind of sarcastic, dry sense of humour that reminded you of home. On the nights when he was working, you found yourself missing him.

Actually _missing_ him.

Tonight was one of his working nights – he’d let his brother close up the bar for the two night’s previous just so he could talk to you about “work”, and you knew he wouldn't want to ask him to do it for a third night. He’d messaged you mid-afternoon when you were still at work, and you’d come home to find his chat window blinking with a new message. You’d started leaving each other little notes like that if you knew you wouldn’t get to chat properly at night – it had started out as a way of leaving links to journal articles he should read, or a film you should check out but had soon morphed into just another way of saying “hi”. Today he’d sent you a picture of a goat and a cow, each with their heads pressed against the side of separate buildings, with the caption “GOAT TO COW, COME IN COW” above and “YES THIS IS COW” below. You didn’t know why it made you hoot with laughter, but it did, so you sent it to print on your last remaining sheet of glossy photo paper before taping it to your fridge door.

Just when you’d finished sticking the picture to the fridge and had started tidying away the dishes you’d left out in your hurry to get to work that morning, you heard your laptop making an unfamiliar bleeping noise from the tiny box room office opposite your kitchen. You slipped inside and watched as you and Clyde’s chat window blinked rapidly, the bleeping getting louder. There was a small green phone icon in the corner of the window flashing wildly, and before you’d realised what you’d done you’d clicked on it. 

The bleeping stopped. The window ceased flashing. Then, a voice.

“Hello?”

You coughed, your voice crackling as you tried to work out just what was going on. “Umm, hi?”

A sigh came through your speakers, from disappointment or relief you weren’t sure.

“Hey there… m’sorry if this is weird, but I wanted to let you know – my uh, my office keyboard is broken, and it’ll take a couple of days for me to get a new one. It’s Clyde, by the way.”

You couldn’t help the grin that spread across your face when he re-introduced himself. “I know it’s you, Clyde – you’re calling through our chat window. Hi there. What happened to your keyboard?”

You could hear some sort of grumbling before he spoke again.

“Jimmy, my brother. He and I had a uh, a disagreement about a thing or two and the keyboard became… collateral damage.” He paused, and you heard him huff out a breath or two before he spoke again. “Hey, I thought you said you lived in Vermont? You don’t sound like you’re from Vermont.”

“Yep, I live in Vermont. I’m not from Vermont.”

“I hear that. I’m from West Virginia.”

You fired up Google Maps as he spoke and searched for West Virginia. Bloody miles away.

While you'd been checking the map, Clyde had gone silent on you. You knew you didn't want his unexpected call to end so quickly, so scrambled for something else to say. “So Clyde… didn’t you say you had a laptop as well as your office computer?”

A sharp intake of breath, and you swore you heard him mutter a curse. “I did? Maybe I did, I can’t remember…”

You grinned and couldn’t help the teasing lilt sneak into your voice. “So… you _could_ just keep chatting to me on your laptop, right? If you didn’t want to stick with this voice-chat thing…?”

He coughed and mumbled something under his breath. “I mean, uh, yeah sure. I just wanted to tell you face to face, as it were. Didn’t want you to worry.”

“Face to face?”

“Voice to – you know what I mean.” You heard something bang in the background, like something had been thrown or dropped.

You smiled, then double-checked to make sure the camera wasn’t also on. It wasn’t. “I know. Thank you, for telling me. Maybe we could swap cellphone numbers – just in case your laptop gets broken too? Just so I don’t worry. You know.” 

“Oh uh, yeah, sure, that makes sense.”

To save saying your number out loud over the crackling voicechat, you typed it into the chat box then watched as an unfamiliar number rang you twice then hung up. You saved the number in your phone as “Clyde DuckTape” and couldn’t help but send him a stupid duck emoji. You heard his phone beep through your speakers, and then his laugh rang out. 

“That’s uh, that’s great. If there are any problems getting a new keyboard or whatever I’ll let you know.”

“That’s cool Clyde, thank you for thinking to let me know. I mean, you could have just waited to use your laptop but it’s nice that you called.”

“Yeah, it is nice… Shit I gotta go, I left Earl behind the bar again and he’ll drink my profits if I don’t get back down. Maybe uh, maybe we could talk later? Or something?”

“I’d like that, Clyde. Go have fun.”

He said goodbye, and the window faded. You couldn’t help but squeal with glee. What a _voice_.


	4. Chapter 4

Clyde Logan loved his older brother Jimmy to the very core, but there had been moments in his life when he was sure he’d have happily taken Jimmy’s head clean off his shoulders. The first time, they were ten and twelve years old and had gone swimming in the creek behind Bobbie Jo’s uncle’s place; Jimmy had stolen Clyde’s clothes and made him walk two miles in his tiny, soaked Speedos until he’d taken pity on the shivering boy, appeared from the roadside bushes like a conquering hero and dumped his clothes at his feet. Clyde, two years younger but already taller than Jimmy, had given him a bloody nose for that. 

The second time had been the original “cauliflower” incident that had ended up with Clyde in juvie at thirteen. He’d expected his rage to dwindle in the six months he spent inside, but had been proven wrong when, on release, he’d strode up to Jimmy and cracked him straight on the jaw. “Jesus Clyde what’s got into you?!” fifteen-year-old Jimmy had shrieked, the punch so quick he hadn’t had a second to defend himself against it. Or maybe he didn’t want to, knowing that Clyde’s youthful incarceration had been mostly down to him. Mostly.

The third time was now. 

“Shit Clyde, I had no idea you were using this learning thing to get _pussy_ \- why didn’t I sign up too?!” Jimmy Logan sat at the desk in Duck Tape’s office, casually scrolling through weeks of Clyde’s conversation. 

“It’s studying, Jimmy…”

Jimmy arched an eyebrow and pointed at the monitor. “This last message – you’re sending her pictures Clyde? That don’t look like studying to me.”

“It’s private.” Clyde took a step closer to the desk, eyeing the power cable that trailed to the wall from the computer. Only the worry that, should he pull it out, the entire conversation would be lost forever stopped him from doing just that. He loved his brother, but he did not want him reading his private conversations.

“Private?” Jimmy leaned back in Clyde's chair, clasping his hands behind his head. He was challenging him to make him stop.

“That’s what I said. Please step away from my computer.” Clyde pointed to the door, hoping that the music from the bar might entice Jimmy downstairs again.

Jimmy showed absolutely no intention of moving. No, Jimmy was staying right here. He’d struck gold going to the computer and he wasn’t about to let that go in a hurry. “You’ve been actin’ weird for weeks, Clyde, I just wanna know why. Is it this girl? Are you gone for her, Clyde, is that it? Are you in _love_?!”

“Please. That’s enough.” The cable was looking tempting now. Maybe he could strangle Jimmy with it without pulling the plug from the wall?

Clyde watched in horror as Jimmy’s goddamn sausage fingers started to dance across the keys. He chanced a glance at the screen, and sure enough Jimmy was typing for real. “Listen t’this Clyde - ‘Hey there beautiful, we’ve been talking – “

“Jimmy, no.” Clyde felt his fist tighten, his heart thundering in his ears.

“ – _Jimmy yes_ , Clyde.” He continued to type as he spoke, “‘Beautiful, we’ve been talking for a long time now, and I was wondering if you would like to come on over here to Boone County and ride me like Seabiscuit. Please say yes - it has been many years since I felt the gentle touch of a woman on my enormous body and I have abused myself so much I now only have one hand left. Help me, beautiful, you are my only hope. Love, Clyde.’ How’s that Clyde, how’s that sound?” Jimmy waggled his eyebrows, his index finger hovering over the Enter key.

Clyde snapped.

When he came-to, Jimmy was crouched on the floor in the corner of the office clutching the back of his head, dissolved in a fit of hysterical laughter. Half of the keyboard lay beside him, the other half clasped in Clyde’s right hand. Oh. The computer was making a strange beeping noise, the words “VOICE CHAT CONNECTING” flashing across the window. _Their_ window. Oh shit.

Keyboard gone, Clyde frantically dragged the mouse across the desk trying in vain to stop what was about to happen from happening, but in his fevered panic he pulled the mouse free from the computer leaving the cursor hanging impotent over the “End Call” icon. Just as he was about to launch the mouse at Jimmy’s head, the chat window stopped flashing, the beeping ceased and “VOICE CHAT CONNECTED” appeared in bold type at the top of the window. 

Clyde Logan was lightheaded, sweaty-palmed, and pretty certain he would need to dismember Jimmy slowly and painfully as soon as this nightmare was over, but he was also a gentleman, and gentlemen did not prank call the objects of their affection, not even online. So, he spoke.

In the corner of the room, a very proud big brother smiled.

\------------

Jimmy Logan loved his little brother unconditionally. Yes, they were very different people and always had been, but despite any disagreements or thrown punches they may have exchanged in the past Jimmy adored Clyde and would do anything for him. He’d watched Clyde change over the last few weeks; he was smiling more when he thought no one was looking and he’d become more adventurous with the cocktails he made (the “Roberta Sparrow” was an invention of Clyde’s and went down a treat with the regulars. Jimmy had no idea what was in it, but it tasted spicy and sweet and even he liked it). Jimmy wasn’t totally sure what was causing the changes in his brother, but he’d bet his last dollar that a woman had something to do with it. He was more relaxed, more talkative to his customers, and he was losing the rigid, stick-up-his-ass walk.

So he watched Clyde and kept an eye on any of the women who came into the bar, eager to discover just who had caught his baby brother’s eye. None of the regular girls fit the bill – they were all either spoken for or didn’t match up with the type of girl he knew Clyde liked (Jimmy recalled a terrible morning when he’d walked into Clyde’s room looking for his best red shirt to find him jerking off to an episode of _Charmed_. They’d never spoken of it again). After a couple of evenings watching Clyde in the bar, Jimmy concluded the girl who’d caught his eye wasn’t a customer and wasn’t one of the waitresses who worked shifts with him, but also that Clyde was definitely happier in Duck Tape. So, Jimmy followed the next logical step and decided to hunt in the office for clues. He did not expect to find the source of Clyde’s happiness in a chatroom on the computer. 

He knew as soon as he started typing that Clyde would snap – they had an unspoken rule that neither Logan brother would ever get up in the other’s romantic business, yet here Jimmy was doing exactly that. He hadn’t expected Clyde to use office gear as a weapon on him – they would be having words about that, of that Jimmy was decided - but this only confirmed to Jimmy that Clyde was well and truly smitten with whoever was on the other side of that window. So he sat quietly, watching and listening from a bloody heap in the corner of the room as Clyde made painfully awkward small talk with someone who sounded like Merida from Brave. After a minute or two Jimmy was pretty sure a marching band could have stormed the office and Clyde wouldn’t have noticed, enraptured as he was with whoever he was speaking to. So he sneaked out, banging his already wounded head on the door frame as he crawled from the office and back downstairs to the bar. He needed a drink.

\------------

Clyde thought that they’d been chatting a lot when it had just been in their chatroom, but nothing prepared him for just how much more they spoke now that they were swapping messages by phone as well as by computer. It was like having here right there in his jean pocket and he loved it. Whenever he felt his phone buzz against his butt cheek he’d linger by the empty beer kegs while he read whatever notion she’d sent to him. His anger at Jimmy for breaking their most sacred brotherly rule had dissolved like Alka Seltzer in water when that damn duck icon had popped up on his phone, and he knew he was a goner for real. She was funny and smart and her voice, sweet Jesus above her _voice_ …

Rather than stay up all night tapping at a keyboard, the two of them had started calling each other to talk instead. He’d thought at first that speaking properly would be difficult, that maybe he’d find it hard to be as open as he had been by text, but that worry vanished in the first phonecall. They stayed up later and later each time, swapping stories about their respective days and, sometimes, working on their dissertation. November became December, and she started sending photographs of the snowy street she lived on, of the cute paper decorations the kids in her class had been making for the holidays, and then this morning a picture of herself. Okay, he could only see her eyes because she was wrapped up to her nose in an enormous pink scarf and had a matching woollen hat pulled down to her eyebrows, but he thought she was the most beautiful knitwear model he’d ever seen. The caption sent with the picture simply stated “I’M SO COLD!” and before Clyde had time to register what he was doing he’d replied:

\- _You look like you need someone to warm you up._

He felt his stomach drop as he watched her type a reply. What was he thinking, saying something like that? Yes they’d been speaking _a lot_ for weeks and weeks now, and yes their conversations had gotten to be a lot more personal and affecting than just discussing their work, but never had they strayed into actual flirtation. This was new territory.

\- _Are you offering, Clyde? ;)_

A winking-face. What did that mean? Did she want him to warm her up? Or was she winking out of fun because she was laughing at the idea? Once again, Clyde’s thumb decided to work independently of his brain and his response was sent before he’d had time to second-guess himself any further.

\- _Yes, ma’am. I'm offering._

\- _If you were here I’d definitely have to take you up on that, you'd get me warmed up in no time. Gotta go to work now. X_

It felt like all the blood in his body had diverted to his dick. Christ almighty, what was she doing to him? He carried the image of his arms wrapped around her snow-gear-covered body for the rest of the day and well into the night, and decided that come hell or high water, it had to happen. He wanted, no, _needed_ to meet her for real, face to face, just to see if this bubble of _something_ that he carried around in his chest all day and night was there for her too. He had absolutely no idea how it could happen (and tried to ignore the prickling sensation that maybe she might not want it to) but Logan curse be damned he was going to try.


	5. Chapter 5

To suggest that you and Clyde talked only about your studies had long since been a lie, but you were starting to get concerned. While you’d more than exceeded your expectations up until the beginning of December, spewing out page upon page of decent research as well as filling up your chapter scaffolding with some seriously solid content, the last couple of weeks had been decidedly less productive. That wasn’t to say your communications had become less frequent – quite the opposite in fact. You’d spent every night this week on the phone to your study-buddy, and when you weren’t speaking directly you were messaging each other by phone or computer. He had become a constant in your quiet life, a daily (sometimes hourly) touchstone that you shared, laughed and (sometimes) learned with. 

\- _How was work? Kids good for you? Holidays soon, right?_

Your phone had pinged with Clyde’s latest message just as you had stepped out from your post-work, pre-party shower. It had taken a lot longer than usual thanks to an enthusiastic five-year-old, a jar of Elmer’s glue and a tub of rainbow glitter, but you were pretty sure you’d shampooed the last of the sparkly mess out after three attempts. The kids in your class had been overhyped for Christmas as soon as the calendar had flipped from November to December, each one a little atom bomb of Santa-fuelled excitement. With only a few days left to go before the holidays started you were sure today’s glitter explosion wouldn’t be the last. 

\- _I came home wearing glitter like a hat. Only one week until the sweet release of merciful state-imposed vacation. Christmas Eve until January 2nd. Just gotta make it through the Christmas party tonight. :( What about you, are you giving yourself any time off?_  
\- _I’m working Christmas Eve, then taking a few days off. Christmas Eve is always busy in the bar. Mellie’s got a “Karaoke Wonderland” planned – I don’t know what that means, but the bar looks like a grotto exploded everywhere. You don’t like a party?_  
\- _You should send me pictures, I’d love to see the bar! And I love a party, but work parties are always lame._  
\- _Mine aren’t._  
\- _Maybe I should work for you then? Show me the bar!_

You’d love him to show you something else too, but you didn’t add that to your text. Sending him a picture of yourself, covered in winter wear as you’d been, had been spontaneous but you’d held out a little hope that perhaps he’d reciprocate with a picture of his own. In the two weeks that had passed, none had been forthcoming. Sure, he’d send you little snapshots of the things that caught his eye (a giant hotdog van, some sinister-looking elves outside his local supermarket, a parcel full of books that had arrived in his mail one day) but you still had no clue what the man looked like. It didn’t stop you from dreaming.

Your phone pinged again, and a photo appeared on screen. Clyde really hadn’t been kidding when he’d said the bar looked like a grotto exploded. Fairylights stretched across the whole space, from the shelves and storage suspended above the bar to the wooden pillars that separated the pool tables and seating area, and anywhere else Clyde’s sister had managed to reach. Between the cables of lights hung lengths of sparkling tinsel, paper chains and foil bells, and in the centre of the ceiling an enormous bunch of mistletoe had been attached to the glitterball that spun above the small dance floor. The floor around the tables had been scattered with already grubby-looking fake snow, with polystyrene “icebergs” wedged randomly against the walls. Each table had an angel, polar bear or elf holding the food and drinks menus, and beside the jukebox sat the pièce de résistance, a menacing-looking stuffed reindeer complete with flashing red nose beside a huge fibreoptic colour-changing tree.

It took a couple of minutes for you to take in the full extent Clyde’s sister had gone to in decorating her brother’s bar with quite that level of effort, and just when you’d composed yourself enough to reply with your commiserations and ask how he avoided a seizure seeing that flashing red nose all day, your phone pinged again, but from an unknown number. You swiped out from Clyde’s messages and tapped on the unknown number that had buzzed you to find another photo.

Two men stood leaning against the same bar from Clyde’s last message, with wide smiles on their faces and enormous light-up reindeer antlers attached to their heads. Between them stood a small girl clinging onto the shorter man’s leg like a koala round a tree, her curly blonde hair in pigtails, gap-toothed and grinning, in a Christmas angel costume complete with giant gauze wings and a golden halo. The taller man, because _wow_ he was tall, and broad, and stupidly handsome had his hand on the other man’s shoulder, his left hand hanging by his side.

His left hand.

His _metal_ left hand.

Holy shit, it was _him_.

Another message popped up below the photo – 

\- _Don’t tell him I sent this, he’ll have my hide. Mellie x (Clyde’s sister)._

You saved the number to your phone, and tapped a quick reply:

\- _OMG HE’S ADORABLE AS FUCK_  
\- _GOD I WANT TO EAT HIS CLOTHES_  
\- _DAMN HE’S SO FINE_  
\- _LOOK AT HIS HAIR IT’S SO SHINY AND SOFT_

You held your thumb over the delete button until your wild initial reactions vanished from the text box and went instead with _“Thank you so much :) Great decorating btw!”_. Message sent, you scrolled back to the picture and zoomed in on him. The crush you’d been nursing on your long-distance friend bloomed into full-blown thirst for the man the more you looked at the photo. His hair was a little longer than normally attracted you, but it looked so thick and soft you wanted nothing more than to lose your fingers in it for an hour or two at least. His shoulders and chest were broad and wrapped in a dark blue shirt, tapering down to narrow hips and solid thighs encased in tight jeans. And then you focused on his face and just about lost all sense of time. Warm brown eyes, pouty lips, cheekbones dotted with freckles and moles. When you coupled this picture with the voice you had in your ear most nights, you were done for. There was only one thing for it.

A little over an hour later you stood facing the full-length mirror that you’d found clamped to the back of your bedroom door when you’d moved into the apartment. With your hair blow dried and sitting unnaturally tame, make-up bringing out the colour of your eyes better than you’d ever managed before, and a slick of pale gloss plumping your lips, you were finally ready. You’d squeezed yourself into your favourite dress; a tight little sequinned number with a super-deep v-neck that made your cleavage look _immense_ , coupled with thick black tights and a pair of cute black ankle boots - _boobs out, legs hidden_ was the creed you lived by, and you hoped the thick tights might ease some of the winter chill you knew you’d find on your short walk to the bar your colleagues were meeting in. You held your phone up as you perfected your pose in the mirror, snapped a handful of pictures, chose the best one and hit send before you had time to second-guess yourself. You hoped Clyde felt a hint of the excitement you’d felt when Mellie had sent his picture to you – maybe he’d send you a picture of himself, from himself, and you could be open in your swooning?  


Just as you arrived at the bar you felt your phone buzz from within the confines of the small bag you’d brought with you. Sheltering inside the doorway, you pulled it out and read, then re-read, Clyde’s latest message.

\- _You are more beautiful than I could ever have imagined. I wish I was there to make the party fun for you._

That was it, he was going to kill you with softness, you were sure of it now. You tried to restrain your need to swoon against the door like a maiden aunt and tapped out your response.

\- _You flatter me, Clyde. Permission to text you when my colleagues’ work-chat bores me to tears? That may not take long, I warn you._  
\- _You can text, or call me, anytime you want, sparrow. I’ll be here._  
\- _Sparrow?_

A nickname? This was new, he'd only ever called you by your name before.

\- _Like your screen name, RobertaSparrow..._  
\- _I like it. I like you. Speak soon. X_

Before you convinced yourself to ditch the party and go home to spend all night on the phone with Clyde, you slid your phone back into your bag and stepped into the bar. With Clyde just a text away, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad?


	6. Chapter 6

It had taken approximately eighteen seconds from when Clyde had received the picture of her in her pretty, sparkling dress to when he’d started searching online for the best way to travel from Boone County to Burlington. Flying was the quickest and most direct way of getting there, even having to change at Charlotte, buses were too long and convoluted, and he didn’t have the heart to ask either Mellie or Jimmy to drive him all that way. 

“Clyde? Whatcha doing there?” Mellie had her hand on his forearm, stopping him from impulse-buying whatever he was about to buy. The bar was quiet tonight, most of the regulars having chosen to stay home and prepare for the holidays – it would be busier tomorrow, and Clyde would need to have his wits about him to deal with a bar full of rowdy, festive Boone County drinkers. Mellie had come in tonight while it was quiet to finish off the last of her garish decorations, wrapping yet more lights around the bar and another set of twinkling glass baubles to the tree by the jukebox.

“Just... looking at taking a trip, Mel.”

“Trip to where?”

He coughed, his voice cracking under Mellie’s curious eye. “Vermont.”

“That where she lives?” She softened her voice and squeezed his arm a little tighter.

Clyde nodded.

“I’m not like Jimmy y’know, you can talk to me about her…”

He nodded once more, then led his sister (plus a bottle of bourbon) upstairs. Earl gave him a two-fingered salute as he moved from one side of the bar to the other – he really should be on the payroll.

Talking to Mellie was so much easier than trying to talk to Jimmy. Mellie listened, really listened, as Clyde described how he’d gotten to know the woman who occupied his mind and his heart. He explained how they’d “met”, how often they talked and a little of what they talked about, how he longed to meet her in person and find out once and for all whether the feelings he had bubbling inside his chest were reciprocated. He showed Mellie the photo he’d received.

“Jesus Clyde, she’s real pretty”.

He puffed up his chest with pride. “Yep, she sure is.”

“And you’re sure you really want to meet her?”

“More than anything, Mel.”

“And does she feel the same? Does she want to meet you too?”

Clyde bit his tongue, took his phone back from Mellie’s grasp and set it down on the desk.

“M’not sure, I ain’t asked her about it.”

“You haven’t ever talked about maybe getting together one weekend?” Mellie refilled her shot glass and downed it in one, then repeated the action and downed the second glass; comforting Clyde could end up being tougher than she’d first thought.

“No Mellie, I have not.” 

“Well... here’s a notion. Why don’t you maybe ask her tonight? See how she feels about it? Maybe she wants to meet you just as much, but she’s shy?”

Clyde rolled his brown eyes and scoffed, skipping the glass and bringing the bottle straight to his lips. “She ain’t shy.”

It was Mellie’s turn to roll her eyes this time, snatching the bottle from her brother’s grip and downing double his intake. “Clyde, there is a difference between taking a picture and talking about feelings... She might be shy. Y’should ask her.”

Lord, Mellie loved Clyde. Yes, she and Jim had been in the same circle of friends in school and had always got on together more as kids, but Clyde was her closest big brother and she loved him. She’d cried for three days when he’d left for Iraq the first time and cried for three days more when he’d come home injured. When he’d got out from hospital after the full amputation and all the other surgeries after that it had been Mellie who’d been there to help him when he needed it at home. She’d driven him to all his physiotherapy appointments, counselling and VA meetings, she’d adjusted all his shirts so he could roll the cuffs himself, and she’d taught him how to do everything one-handed (she didn’t tell him just how she’d learned how to do certain things one handed; a big brother needed to know only so much). They’d grown so much closer since he’d come home, and she could tell right away when his self-doubt was playing tricks on him. Like Jimmy, she’d watched as Clyde had changed and blossomed since Fall, and she knew this girl who had caught his heart was the cause of all this change. He just needed a little push in the right direction.

“Where is she tonight?”

Clyde checked his watch. “She’s out with her work team at their Christmas party, at some bar somewhere in Burlington.”

“Is she having fun?”

He shook his head, another mouthful of bourbon burning his cheeks and tongue before he swallowed. “No, she thinks work parties are boring and she wishes she worked for me, since I told her Duck Tape parties are good.”

Mellie elbowed him affectionately. “Duck Tape parties are the _best_ , baby!” Her gaze softened, and she placed her hand on his tree-trunk bicep. “Ask her, Clyde. Call her and ask her. Won’t do no harm.” 

Happy with her little sisterly pep-talk, Mellie rose from her spot on the office chair and ruffled Clyde’s hair softly. “Here, gimme that…” Before he had time to complain, she’d taken his phone from the table and snapped a quick picture of him, all soft-eyed and fluffy-haired and perched on the corner of the often-misused desk, then sent it on to his girl. There, now he’d know she knows what he looks like.

“Mellie, what’d you do?”

“No harm, Clyde. You’re lookin’ handsome tonight, she should see that.”

She left him grumbling and scrolling through his phone in the office, paying no mind to his complaints when he saw the photo she’d sent. He wouldn’t mind, not once he heard his girl’s reaction.

\------------

Clyde scrolled to the end of the messages, cursing Mellie for surprising him with that photo, and found that new messages had come through since the two of them had hidden themselves upstairs in the office.

\- _Clyde help, they’re killing me softly, I can only hear arguments about class curriculum so many times before I pray for the sweet release of death. I wish you were here so bad._

Then, sent twenty minutes later:

\- _Seriously I look so pretty tonight I surprise myself, it is wasted on these clowns. Did you like my dress? I hope so xxx x xx_

Finally, from just two minutes ago:

\- _Walking home now, I miss u_

His heart swelled at that, so he did what he’d been resisting all evening and dialled her number. She picked up after just one ring.

“Clyde! You called! It’s snowing now, it’s so pretty! I may have had a bit to drink tonight, sorry, there was free wine on the table and I needed something to get me through the meal.”

He smirked against the mouthpiece of the phone as he moved from leaning on the edge of the desk and into the office chair itself, getting comfortable in it as she described the snow falling on her walk home.

“Hey there, beautiful. Warm enough?”

She laughed, and it made heat bloom in his chest. “I’m fine, my place is just around the corner and I left the heating on before I went out, so it’ll be nice and toasty inside.”

“Good, wouldn’t want you to end up with frostbite.”

“I’ll make sure to keep all my toes and fingers, don’t worry”.

He continued to make small talk as she wandered along quiet streets to her apartment, letting herself in and noisily kicking off her boots once indoors. She colourfully narrated the attempts made at untangling herself from her coat, hat and scarf until she announced triumphantly that she was now free of all outdoor clothing and clad in just her dress and tights. 

“Toasty now.”

“Jesus, you’re cute when you’re full of wine.”

“Am I not cute when I’m not full of wine?” 

Clyde could hear the twinge of mischief in her voice, coupled with a hint of anxiety. He decided to chase that away once and for all. “Honestly? I think you’re cute all the time. And beautiful, and real smart too.... I’m just feeling brave enough to say it to you now.”

He swore he heard her sigh. “You okay there?”

“Mmm, Clyde, I’m fine,” Her voice was warm and groggy, and he liked the way it purred against his ear through the phone. “I like the photo, by the way… you look really, umm, beautiful. Handsome. Really handsome. A lot.”

“A lot?” He couldn’t help the swell of masculine pride hearing that she thought he was handsome. Maybe Mellie sending that photo wasn’t so bad?

“A lot, a lot. So much.” Another sigh, the sound of fabric rustling. 

“Y’okay there?”

“Mmm, just getting into bed.”

In bed? She had been put on this earth to test him, had to be. He knew that, since they spent most nights talking until the sun came up, she’d had to have been in bed at least some of those times, but she’d never explicitly stated it – she’d certainly never mentioned getting into bed while talking to him at the same time. He tried, and failed, to ignore the way the mental imaged caused his dick to twitch in interest. He focused on steadying his breathing – _when did it get so fast?_ – and picked at a layer of varnish that was peeling off the desk.

Her voice cracked through the silence. “You’ve gone awful quiet there Clyde… are you thinking about me in this big bed all by myself…?” 

He swallowed hard. “Christ… I might be…”

“Good, I like knowing that. It really is a shame you’re not here, you know…”

“Oh, I know, believe me, it’s a shame you gotta be there in that, uh, big huge bed, all by yourself…” The bourbon he’d shared with Mellie had loosened his tongue; phone sex wasn’t something he’d ever really entertained before, but all of a sudden, nervousness be damned, he was _keen_.

“Maybe you could… what did you say that day when I sent my photo to you? Oh yeah, you could ‘warm me up right’…”

“Mm hmm, yeah, I could do that, I could warm you up.”

“Tell me how, Clyde. How would you warm me up?”

Where to begin? He wasn’t ready to reveal that “warming her up” had been his early-morning shower fantasy every day for the last two weeks, but he needed to say _something_ before the moment, whatever this moment was, passed. “I would… I’d need t’get you outta that dress – sequins and sparkles don’t look comfortable – “

“…I’m already out of the dress, Clyde. Have been for a few minutes now. I’m just lying here, all alone in this big bed, in my favourite red lace bra and panties…”

He damn near swallowed his tongue. “Red lace…?”

“Mmmhmm, it’s festive. Wanna see?”

The line cracked a little as she moved the phone, and before Clyde’s brain had a chance to compute what she had just said, his phone buzzed to life with a picture of her. He choked back a moan as he took in the image he’d been sent – she’d framed the photo so that her “festive” lace bra and soft, smooth stomach were in the centre of the image, the top of the picture cutting off just above the stretch of her neck and the pink pout of her lips, the bottom of the photo ending where red lace dipped between the junction of her thighs. Instinctively Clyde swapped hands, holding the phone against his ear with his left as he palmed himself with his right. 

“That sure looks festive.”

“I’m… I’m gonna touch myself now Clyde, if that’s okay?”

She giggled at her own question, and the sound travelled straight to his swiftly-hardening cock. He was so beyond glad Mellie had closed the office door properly behind her when she’d left, the last thing he wanted were interruptions now. He unzipped his jeans and hissed when he slid his hand inside his boxers, his skin burning at his own touch.

“That’s so okay, so okay…”

Neither said much more, both acutely aware of what they were doing to each other as they palmed, rubbed and stroked themselves, both wishing they could make the hundreds of miles between them disappear in a flash. Clyde’s brain near short-circuited when he heard her sigh his name - _his name_ \- only encouraging him to stroke his cock quicker and harder, twisting his wrist at the tip just the way he liked, imagining instead it was her hand… or better still, her mouth.

“M’so close Clyde, so close…”. She was gasping, and he wanted to hear her like that all the time.

“That’s it pretty girl, me too, me too… wanna hear you…”

Her broken, exhausted moan of his name was all it took to spur him to his own edge, giving him just enough time to push his shirt up to his chest before he spilled over his hand and stomach as he sighed her name down the phone. _If anyone had come into the office…_ the thought both mortified and excited him as he wiped his hand on a stray bar towel and pushed his sweat-damp hair from his face.

When she spoke again, she sounded sated and sleepy. Clyde wanted nothing more than to cover her in kisses and pull her to sleep cradled in his arms. “That… that won’t make anything weird between us, will it?”

He shook his head, then remembered she wasn’t actually there in his arms, so he spoke. “No, no, we won’t let it. I like you more than just being my study partner, and more than just being my friend, so I don’t want to let it be ‘weird’. It’s good.”

“So good.” He could almost hear her smile.

“So good.”

“I’m gonna go to sleep before… orgasms make me talkative, and I’ll end up saying a lot more –“ She sighed again, and he heard her moving to get comfortable in bed.

“I understand. Go get some sleep.”

“Goodnight, Clyde. Sleep tight.”

“Night beautiful, sleep tight.”

He placed his phone down on the desk and leaned forward to lay his forehead beside it, enjoying the sensation of the cool varnished wood on his overheated skin. Somehow, he had to tidy himself up enough to be able to go downstairs and face the bar (and his sister) without making it obvious he’d just had his first phone sex experience with the girl of his dreams. An impossible task – the dopey, loved-up smile that currently stretched across his face wouldn’t be leaving any time soon. Instead he washed his hands, straightened out his clothing and hair as best he could and strode proudly downstairs into the bar and announced over the noise coming from the jukebox that everyone was getting a round of drinks on the house – let ‘em all talk.


	7. Chapter 7

Waking up the next morning, you rolled and stretched and scratched your fingers through your hair, wondering why you felt so _good_. You’d given yourself the luxury of a long lie-in, waking up a little before lunchtime with the winter sun beaming through your still-open curtains. Why hadn’t you shut them before bed?

You flipped your pillow over to the cold side, and your phone went flying down the back of the mattress. Why wasn’t it plugged in like normal? Then you spotted your underwear in a crumpled heap on the floor, and a rush of warmth flooded you. 

_Clyde._

You retrieved your phone from the dust-bunny playground behind your bed and scrolled through the call list, and sure enough, there he was. 

Despite your normally patchy post-wine memory, your call with Clyde shone in technicolour in your head, every word, gasp and moan filling your ears loud enough that you felt like you were hearing them again for real. God he’d sounded _good_ , his moans rumbling round in your mind as you dragged yourself from bed to shower to kitchen, fixing yourself tea and cereal and trying to shake off the nagging sense of awkwardness when you thought about your usual morning greeting. Sure, it wasn’t morning now, but you hadn’t let more than half an hour pass between waking and messaging him for two weeks and letting the minutes tick by today made you antsy. But still, despite last night’s assurances that neither of you would let the latest development in your budding relationship make things weird, you felt weird, and you couldn’t quite bring yourself to text Clyde hello. You let the minutes slide by.

Groaning, you flopped forward and pressed your forehead into the cheap formica counter that you used as a breakfast table, ignoring the crackled surface as it pressed grooves into your skin. Had you pushed things too far?

——————

He was trying not to worry, he really was, but when the afternoon hours ticked by and he hadn’t heard from you, the itch in the base of his spine that told him something was wrong only got harder to ignore. He’d expected you to sleep in later than usual - it was the weekend after all, and he suspected that you’d be sleeping off a wine-induced headache well into the late morning and maybe even beyond, but he couldn’t shake the worry that something wasn’t right.

He’d got up that morning bright and early and full of renewed enthusiasm for the season. He’d taken the bus to the Save-A-Lot in Madison after breakfast and purchased Christmas decorations for his trailer, as well as smoked thick-cut bacon that he could never find in the local Grocery World, and some glitzy wrapping paper that reminded him of her glittering party dress. He’d travelled home and thrown the Christmas decorations all around his trailer; he’d even bought little lights to string up in the sycamore tree that rattled against his windows at night. After stowing the paper and bacon away safely he’d hung his decorations, set up the tiny pre-lit artificial tree on the dining counter and then suspended the lights on the sycamore tree outside. They’d look festive once the stars came out.

Festive.

He’d never be able to hear or see the word without thinking of _her_ and her damn red lingerie again. She’d ruined him forever, in the best of ways. 

Clyde’s watch alarm beeped at five pm, and he still hadn’t heard a peep from her. It’d soon be time for him to go to work, and he knew tonight would be a wild one - the Saturday before Christmas always was. He pulled up the message window on his phone, smiled once more at her tipsy, warm texts from last night, and let his thumb hover over the keyboard. Just as he was about to type out a swift hello, the itchy-hot anxious feeling in his spine broke free and flooded every nerve in his body with self-doubt, fear and shame - maybe he’d pushed her too far last night, maybe what they’d let each other hear was _too much_ , too intimate... maybe she’d come to her senses and realised she didn’t want him after all? He pushed his phone deep into his pocket, leaving any message he may have wanted to send untyped. His mood dark and festering, he stormed off to Duck Tape, ignoring the Christmas lights that fell from the tree when he slammed his trailer door behind him.

——————

Dinner time came and went, and you tried to focus on catching up with the current chapter of your dissertation as you earnestly ignored your silent phone. You’d let your anxieties win today, refusing to let yourself message Clyde while your brain worked overtime convincing you that your brief adventure with phone sex had spoiled the blossoming relationship you and he had been building since the autumn. No wonder he hadn’t messaged - he’d heard everything he’d needed to. You’d handed yourself to him on a plate, he’d taken what he wanted and vanished. The rational part of your brain screamed in protest - you were wrong, so wrong, you _knew_ he cared for you, yet your lack of self-esteem had won the day before you’d even rolled out of bed, and you wouldn’t sway yourself to believe he really cared. With tears in your eyes, you battered your fingers against your keyboard as you put the finishing touches to the chapter you’d been working on. Clyde may have taken your self-respect, but he wasn’t taking your degree from you. You cried, and typed, and tried to ignore your cold, silent phone.

——————

As expected, Duck Tape was full to bursting this Saturday night. Mellie’s karaoke wonderland had brought drinkers and singers in from two counties over, and Clyde had had to call in additional bar staff over and above the usual Saturday team to keep on top of all the customers. Any normal day and this number of customers would have made the night fly by, but every minute of this evening dragged as Clyde waited for his butt-pocket to buzz with a message or call.

Jimmy and Sylvia had appeared at the bar early into the night, eyes shining with joy when all of a sudden Sylvia thrust her left hand in Clyde’s field of vision, the third finger sparkling with a diamond and sapphire on a silver band. Jimmy’s face was sheer joy as he formally announced their news, and it took every cell of energy in Clyde’s body to drum up the enthusiasm expected of him as he forced down his own longing to congratulate his brother and soon-to-be-bride. It wasn’t that he wasn’t pleased for the two of them, far from it, he just couldn’t concentrate fully, and if he were real honest with himself, the itchy-heat in his spine had given way to a sharp green fizz of jealousy as soon as he saw the gems on Sylvia’s finger. Once again his big brother had got exactly what he wanted, and Clyde was still alone. He finished up his hasty congratulations to his brother and future sister in law, guiding the couple into Mellie’s far more excited bubble. She shrieked and hollered at the news, darting up to the karaoke machine to dedicate a truly painful rendition of “Somebody To Love” by Queen to them while Clyde seethed and chopped citrus fruit by the bar, Jimmy and Sylvia slow-dancing on the sticky, fake-snow covered dancefloor. Still, his phone didn’t buzz.

——————

The night the grew later still, and while some of the regulars had left at last, Jimmy, Sylvia and Mellie included, a small number remained at their tables drinking and toasting the night away. Clyde’s anxiety, anger and frustration had condensed and solidified in his gut as the night had crept on, more convinced than ever that his sweet girl, his Sparrow, had abandoned him once and for all after one night of misguided intimacy. He’d checked the computer and his phone repeatedly throughout the night and found nothing; no messages, no emails, no notes, and his mood had darkened by the minute to the point where the usually placid barman was snapping and being downright rude to staff, regulars and new customers alike. Eventually he’d cracked entirely, announcing that the bar was closed and screaming at the two bar staff to go home - he’d pay them but they needed to leave _now_ ; they’d left without looking back, leaving Clyde alone in his empty bar, the jukebox spinning Neil Young as his loneliness spilled over him in waves.

He didn’t hear the door to the bar swing open as he angrily shoved glasses back into the storage shelves below the bar and refilled the fridges with bottles of beer and mixers.

He didn’t hear the heavy footsteps that thudded across the floor.

He didn’t have time to react when he finally spotted the two balaclava-covered men who’d entered while he was furious and distracted and _alone_. The Saturday before Christmas was a profitable night, and Clyde hadn’t had a chance to empty the cash register into the hidden safe in the office while he was distracted and angry and furiously sending everyone away. 

The two masked men who loomed over him, baseball bats in their hands, knew it’d be easy to grab the cash from the register and run, but they’d travelled a long way tonight, they needed more action than a quick smash and grab. Their bats and fists were eager for a little fun. Clyde swallowed hard and closed his eyes as the men raised their weapons; he almost felt relief, knowing that the pain he was about to feel would chase away the emptiness he’d let fester within him all day and night...

——————

You’d dozed off at your laptop after emailing the chapter to Clyde for his thoughts; if he only ever spoke to you again in the margins of your shared dissertation, you’d decided that maybe that would be enough. You were awoken from your dreamless, shallow sleep by a shrill alarm that your subconscious recognised to be your phone - eagerness and expectation telling you it would be Clyde, you answered right away, pushing any anxiety or anger aside, just keen to hear his voice.

“Hey there, it’s Mellie, Clyde’s sister...”

“Mellie? Hi, sorry I didn’t realise, I thought -“

She hushed you quickly. “How quickly can you get here?”

“Here? You mean West Virginia?” You didn’t care to admit you already knew it was a sub-four hour flight.

Mellie sniffed hard, and you heard her shuffle the phone in her hands. “Listen, something’s happened... I know you and Clyde are -“

You felt your blood chill in your veins. “What’s happened? Is he okay? Can I talk to him?”

Mellie’s sobs told you more than you needed to hear. “I found him this morning, in the bar... The place was robbed, and he’s hurt real bad. Doctors think he’s got internal bleeding, his spleen or his liver maybe, they ain’t sure yet... I know you and he are, aren’t... you know, but if... you should get here, quick. He’s going into surgery soon. We won’t know anymore until he... if he...”

You were already stuffing clothes, your ID and money into a bag as you hung up on Mellie and dialled a cab to take you to the airport. The worry and awkwardness of the previous day had evaporated as soon as Mellie had told you Clyde was hurt. He was _hurt_ , hurt enough for his sister to ask you to get there as fast as you could. You wouldn’t let her down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sorry!


	8. Chapter 8

It took a little under eight hours to get door-to-door from your apartment in Burlington to the hospital they’d taken Clyde to in Charleston. Mellie had kept you updated by text as best she could while you travelled, letting you know when Clyde was sent for tests and scans, when they were waiting for results, and eventually when he was taken into surgery to deal with internal bleeding and a suspected ruptured spleen. She’d warned you that he “didn’t look great”, so you braced yourself for anything from a split lip to a black-n-blue face and body. You didn’t care how he looked, just as long as he was breathing and you could see him with your own eyes.

You were met at the airport in Charleston by Sylvia, Jimmy’s fiancée, who had scribbled your name on a notebook just like in the movies. She’d greeted you in the arrivals hall with a brief hug, grabbed your rucksack and then driven you to the hospital at breakneck speed whilst making minimal smalltalk; you appreciated all the gestures and liked her immensely already. 

“How was he, when you left the hospital?”

Sylvia kept her eyes straight ahead while she weaved in and out of the mid-afternoon traffic. 

“He... he’s in good hands, in the best place for him.” She didn’t spare you a glance as she drove, her mouth set in a tight line. You followed her gaze and focused on the road ahead, swallowing down the panic that had been threatening to overwhelm you since Mellie’s call.

——————

The parking gods were on Sylvia’s side that day as she threw the car into a space as close to the main entrance as anyone could get. She didn’t look back as she swiftly made her way into the huge grey-white building and led you into the nearest elevator, pressing the button to the second floor then repeatedly hitting the “close door” button - the only outward sign of her concern. You arrived in the second floor Intensive Care unit and found yourself enveloped in two pairs of Logan arms. Mellie had thrown herself at you as soon as you and Sylvia had arrived in the family waiting area, thanking you repeatedly for coming, not quite believing you’d travelled all this way. After a moment another pair of arms held you; Jimmy, the eldest Logan, squeezing the two of you tight as Sylvia watched on. Eventually they let you sit down on one of the plain plastic seats that lined the wall, each Logan flanking you while Sylvia curled up beside Jimmy.

“One of the doctor’s came in a minute ago to say he’s in the recovery room and they’re taking him to a ward room soon...”. Jimmy’s eyes were swimming, and he reached for Sylvia’s hand before he said more. “They had t-to remove his spleen - it was fully ruptured, an’ he’d bled a lot into his belly. It was lucky Mellie found him when she did - a little later, and he... he might not’ve...”. He squeezed his fingers into his eyes as though trying to push his tears back into the ducts; Sylvia rubbed soothing circles into his broad back as he wept.

Mellie reached for your hand, squeezing it quickly as she described how she’d found him in the early hours.

“We’d been in the bar last night celebrating Syl and Jimmy’s engagement - Clyde was quiet last night, tired I think. We left, and I went to my friend’s house for a nightcap... left his place at four and saw the Coors light was still lit up when the cab passed the bar - Clyde _never_ leaves the neon lights on, always says he’s worried they’ll set the place on fire... Anyways I got the cab to pull into the bar - I thought that maybe he’d stayed up late drinking and I wanted to check in on him...” She retrieved a bottle of water from her purse, taking a mouthful before she continued.  
“Whoever did this to him is a fuckin’ monster. He was on the floor, all bloody and broken, the bar was trashed, all the bottles smashed, glass and booze everywhere... and Clyde was just lyin’ there in the centre of it all.”

You felt dizzy, trying desperately to cling onto the Logans’ hope that this time, this one time, Clyde would be lucky and get through this.

It was as though Mellie was reading your mind. “He’s going to be _fine_ ; he’s the strongest of all of us, he’s been through shit before and come through it stronger.” 

She shook your knee gently. “He’s got you now too, don’t he?”

You placed your hand over hers and nodded, letting out a shaky breath. “If he’ll have me.”

From your left, Jimmy snorted in amusement as he wiped his face on his sleeve - Sylvia tutted and passed him a tissue from her bag. “Oh girl, he’ll have you, ain’t no problem there.”

——————

When the nurses came through to let you all know that Clyde had been moved to his own room, Jimmy and Sylvia were first on their feet - the intensive care ward was strict about visitors and limited each bed to two visitors at a time. Mellie waited with you while Jimmy and Sylvia were led away by the nurses to Clyde’s room, distracting herself from the agony of waiting to see her brother by making lists of things Clyde might need in hospital on her phone, twirling a long tendril of hair between her fingers.

Not knowing what else you could do, you pulled your phone from your bag and started searching for a motel nearby - after your frantic dash to the airport you hadn’t had a chance to look for one until now. Just when you found a Best Western near enough to the hospital, Mellie pulled your phone from your hand, tutting and clicking her tongue. “Oh no honey, you’re not wasting any money in one of those dirty motels, you’re staying with me.”

“You’re really kind, but I can’t ask th-“

“Y’ain’t asking, I offered. And besides, if Clyde knew I’d let you stay in a motel he’d have my hide worse than if he knew I’d sent you that first picture...”

You smiled at the memory - was it really only two days ago? “Why did you send me that picture?”

She sighed, curling her legs beneath her as she tried to find a comfortable way of sitting on the unforgiving plastic chair. “Listen, I never meddle in Clyde’s business normally. Jimmy’s fair game because he can be a real little shit when he wants to be, but Clyde...? Clyde’s different. He keeps himself locked up tight, like a bird in a basement, and I knew if he didn’t get a little push he’d lock himself up so tight and dark that he’d lose his chance at something special. I hoped that you seeing his picture would spur you both onto something else, something more than just dancin’ round each other online the way you have been all these months.

“He’s changed a lot since the two of you met, me and Jimmy both noticed it. He’s opened himself up, he’s happier. You make him happier.”

You rubbed at your damp eyes, thanking Mellie when she thrust some tissues into your hand. You blew your nose and took a couple of deep breaths, then another, trying to tame your strangled, urgent thoughts. “He makes me happy too Mellie. Like, I didn’t think or expect any of this, ever - we met studying online for Christ’s sake... he’s just worked his way into my life and I -“

The door swung open, Sylvia beckoning the two of you out. “Girls, you should go see him.”

——————

Despite Jimmy and Sylvia’s insistence that you go in, you waited outside the single room while Mellie went in first to check on her big brother. She’d been holding herself together pretty well until Sylvia has reappeared in the room, eyes wet but warm and optimistic, beckoning the two of you through the intensive care corridor and into the ward, turning a sharp left and leading you further down a hall until you saw “Room 207 - Clyde Logan” in red script on the pen board by the door. Jimmy and Sylvia, looking far more settled and comforted than they had before, hugged you again and insisted they take you out for dinner the following night before taking their leave from the hospital, promising to return early the next day. You gave each of them a tight squeeze - you felt far closer to each of them than you should, given that you’d only met them a matter of hours before, but it felt _right_ , so you ignored the sly voice niggling inside your mind and opted to follow your heart and agree to hugs, dinner and seeing them tomorrow.

You avoided looking at the window that opened into Clyde’s room, careful to be respectful of Mellie’s privacy with her brother. You heard her through the thin wall that split the room from the wide white corridor as words spilled from her mouth. To your concern, you didn’t hear Clyde’s low rumble of a voice, nor any other response from the man to his sister’s words. Despite your total lack of religious belief, you caught yourself throwing out a quick request to any deity that may be in hearing-distance, _”just let him be okay, please let him be okay...”_

You repeated this over and over until you heard the door click and Mellie reappeared in the corridor. Despite her red-rimmed eyes she looked more settled than she had in the waiting room, just like Jimmy and Sylvia has appeared after their time at Clyde’s bedside. 

“I didn’t tell him you’re here, he could use a nice surprise. Go on in; I’ll wait in the coffee house across the street. Take as long as you like - I mean it.” She kissed your cheek softly after she’d gathered her jacket, scarf and bag, promising you a hot coffee whenever you appeared in the coffee shop. You promised you’d text her when you were on your way and watched as she left the ward on impossible-in-snow heels.

The corridor was empty as you tentatively laid your hand on the door handle that would open into Clyde’s room; your nerves and fear flaring inside now that the Logan’s had left you alone. You were a matter of feet away from the man who had captured and claimed your heart, although he didn’t know it; you longed to stride into the room and collapsed into him but knew you couldn’t. Instead you bit your bottom lip, took a deep breath, and slowly pushed the door just wide enough for you to slip inside.

The room was dark, illuminated by a small lamp in the far corner of the room and the twinkling city lights that bled in between the blinds that hung against the large plate glass window that took up half of the opposite wall. Between you and the window lay the large hospital bed surrounded by drip stands and machinery beeping and hissing and trailing wires and tubes that fed into Clyde’s veins and nostrils. 

It took you a few moments to gather your bearings and bravery and set your eyes on Clyde’s body for the first time. As you’d expected from the photos Mellie had sent just two nights before, he was broad, all taut muscle and wide planes covered by gauze and a hospital gown. His thick dark hair had been pushed back from his face; his face inflamed and covered in dark dangerous bruises, his eyes almost swollen shut, cheekbones angry and bruised, lips and nose split with gashes. A cry caught in your throat when you saw his plastered left arm - the remaining forearm clearly broken, the metal prosthetic wrapped in plastic on the table beside his bed. You stepped closer and dragged another plastic chair with you to his bedside, leaning a little against the bed as you tried to settle your breathing and emotions. You were inches away from him as he slept, and all you wanted to do was curl your body around him and take away every moment of his pain. You pressed your face into your hands and wept, smothering your sobs against your sleeves, trying your hardest to not wake him.

It took a few minutes but eventually you settled, wiping your face on Mellie’s tissue once more. Despite your brief breakdown Clyde hadn’t moved, laying on his back and looking peaceful despite all his visible and invisible injuries. You relaxed into the chair and leaned against the bed, lowering the metal bed rails so you could rest against the mattress, your head close to Clyde’s right arm.

You hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but the next time you glanced up at the window the sky was pitch dark and your phone was buzzing; Mellie was texting you the times of the buses that ran between Charleston and Boone County, promising to pick you up whenever you needed. You replied, apologising for not messaging sooner and giving her a brief update on Clyde’s as-yet unchanged condition, promising to call as soon as anything happened. You returned your phone to your bag and tentatively reached for Clyde’s hand, ghosting the tips of your fingers over the top of his forearm, relishing the sensation of his skin against yours.

The whisper that broke the silence was low and rough; he coughed hard with a moan before coherent words formed.

“Now I know I’m dead... you’re here beside me like this...”

You snapped your head up as soon as you heard his crackling voice, reaching for the jug of water that sat on the unit beside his bed and filling a clear plastic cup. You held it to him and, after a couple of clumsy spills, he was able to drink a few sips before leaning back on the pillow.

“You’re not dead, Clyde, just a bit bashed up...”

His smile may have been bruised but it was there, making your heart soar and tears spill from your eyes. You reached for your purse so you could find your phone again and tell Mellie he was awake but his hand stopped you, his bruised fingers clasping around yours.

“Y-you’re really here? With me?”

You didn’t hesitate to gently lift his fingers up just enough so you could press your lips to his knuckles, then turned your head to press your cheek to them. Your eyes found his, despite how bruised and swollen they were, and you smiled down at him, fully linking your fingers with his as you pressed his hand to your cheek, kissing the back of his wrist inbetween the drip-tubes that were stuck down with tape as they entered the veins in his forearm.

“I came as soon as Mellie phoned me. This is real, Clyde - I’m right here. You’re in hospital, you’re safe, I promise... no-ones going to hurt you again. I’m here, I won’t leave you -“

“Can you stay?”

“As long as you want me. I’m going nowhere.”

At your words, his posture in the bed softened, his breathing deepened and you swore you heard a soft sigh. With his hand he guided your head back to your previous position when you’d been asleep resting against the bed, and he dipped his fingers through your hair as he stroked you tenderly, the movement soothing him as much as it soothed you. When you heard his breathing settle into gentle snuffling snores, you let yourself relax fully into the mattress and drifted off to sleep beside your Clyde.


	9. Chapter 9

The following days passed in such a blur that, had it not been for the bauble-covered trees and glimmering decorations that lined every street between Boone County and Charleston, you would have lost track of the festive season as it loomed ever closer on the horizon. Mellie was a gracious, if often absent host, busy as she was with the salon and tending to the clean up at Duck Tape, but she’d made sure her house was just as Christmassy as all the other houses on the street inside and out. How she did it, you had no idea - she was running from salon to bar to hospital to police station every day. The police had managed to retrieve video footage of Clyde’s attackers from the security system he’d had installed last summer, and along with Clyde’s detailed statement taken from him the day after his surgery, they were pretty sure of their identities and how to track them down. It was only a matter of time.

“Mister Logan was just unlucky that they turned into his street and found his bar - it could’ve been any place they hit that night”, the detective leading the investigation had claimed over a mug of Mellie’s peppermint mocha when she’d called at the house to update her on their progress. Once again, Clyde’s bad luck was haunting him. 

Since Mellie was so busy organising the clean-up of the bar and dealing with the insurance companies while Clyde recuperated in hospital, you and Jimmy shared the bulk of visiting duties. Your paths would cross in the sterile white corridor that led to room 207, and he’d always give you a friendly hug and pester you to come to dinner again. Dinner with Jimmy and Sylvia on your second night in West Virginia had been a cosy, if a little interrogatory, affair - the eldest Logan sibling unable to stop himself from wanting to know all about this strange woman who had captivated his little brother. Sylvia was a little more subtle with her questions but just as curious as Jimmy, and while you knew that if the questions had come from anyone else they would have left you frustrated, with Jimmy and Sylvia you felt comfortable, happy even to share your history. When the cab dropped you back at Mellie’s house later that evening you were buzzed on cold beer and family. The Logan’s had welcomed you with (literal) open arms as soon as they had set eyes on you - you couldn’t remember ever having felt so cared for, not even when you’d been married. Your willingness to drop everything in Vermont to be by Clyde’s side had scored you serious brownie points with the Logan siblings, and you had no intention of ever letting them down.

You’d taken to visiting Clyde in the evenings, when you knew you wouldn’t get disturbed by doctors and nurses checking in on him too often. The nurses that did come in usually just double-checked his pulse, blood pressure and the small dressings that covered the spots where the surgeon’s tools had gone in to remove his spleen and repair the bleeding in his abdomen; all being well, they were in and out of the room in a flash leaving you and Clyde alone. 

From the moment he was alert and awake enough to hold a conversation the two of you had slipped back into your warm familiar routine, staying up talking until the nurses insisted it was time to leave. Even then, Clyde would insist you text him to let him know that you had got back to Mellie’s safely, which led to another hour or so of conversation before you finally persuaded him to get some rest. The awkwardness and anxiety that had plagued you both on Saturday had disappeared, although neither of you were keen to address it explicitly, you simply put it down to experience and moved on. Even still, you couldn’t stop your gaze from lingering on his lips, his tongue, his hand whenever you thought he wasn’t looking, imagining what he’d done to himself on Friday night over the phone with you, and what you wished he’d do to you. Despite your unrelenting lust for the man, your visits remained chaste; the closest you’d got to his lips had been when he’d misjudged a hug and slobbered up against your cheek. You didn’t care to admit how much the clumsy half-kiss had made your skin tingle, or how his gorgeous embarrassed apology had caught your heart in your throat. 

“Surgeon said that, since they did the keyhole surgery and I’m healing so well, I might get to go home before Christmas... Mellie said she wouldn’t celebrate at all if I wasn’t there with her on the 25th, but I told her not to be silly and just go ahead without me anyway....” Clyde’s eyes were full of optimism tonight; now he was on a lower dose of painkiller he’d lost the groggy opiate haze that had lingered over your first few visits to the hospital. He was able to sit up fully in bed, and could walk to and from the small bathroom attached to his room without hunching over or stumbling. Had you not seen the state of him with your own eyes on that first night, you wouldn’t have believed he’d come through a barbaric beating and major surgery in such a short space of time.

“What do you guys usually do on Christmas Day?” The two of you were engaged in an epic battle of Connect Four, purchased in the newsagents at the hospital entrance. Clyde had won the first two matches so there was no room for any further mistakes.

“Jimmy comes over and cremates a turkey, we eat it anyway, then drink a whole heap of beer and watch movies.”

You grinned, spotting a gap in Clyde’s defences and slipped your red counter down the frame, blocking his attempt to quickly win a third match. “Sounds just like home - food, drinks, films, fall asleep on the sofa. Day done.”

“The universal language of Christmas, baby.” He spotted another route and blocked your counter now; despite your annoyance at just how bloody good he was at this game, you were distracted by the way he’d called you _baby_.

“Although I guess this year’ll be different... Jimmy’s taking Sylvia so they can be with Sadie, and... and you’ll be here too.” Clyde’s voice was quieter, less confident, his fingers tapping a yellow counter against the table that swung over his bed. 

“You... you want me to stay for Christmas?” 

“For a start. If you’d like to, I mean, I know I’m probably just assumin’ that you’d like to stay down here and have Christmas with us, you’ve probably already got plans -“ 

“Clyde, I’d love to stay and have Christmas with you. I’d really, really love it.” 

Clyde’s joy at your response was palpable, the bruises and cuts that littered his face vanishing as his eyes shone and his shy smile grew. He abandoned his Connect 4 counter and pushed the table to one side, patting the mattress and encouraging you to sit beside him. 

You moved to perch on the mattress facing Clyde, and gingerly you reached for him, your fingertips ghosting over the ridge of his bruised cheekbone as you pushed his wavy hair back from his face. His eyelids fluttered closed when he felt the hint of your touch and he leaned into your hand, greedy for more. You couldn’t deny him, and avoiding the paper strips that held his wounds closed, you cradled his face in your hand as you leaned forward and softly pressed your lips to his. 

You’d dreamed of kissing Clyde many times; even in the hospital you’d caught yourself imagining him swooping you off your feet and plundering kisses from your willing lips, but nothing you’d imagined had come close to how Clyde Logan made you feel when he kissed you. You hoped he couldn’t feel the sweat on your palm against his face as he pressed his lips to yours - the thought vanished as soon as his lips parted and he ran his tongue against your bottom lip, making your whole world tilt on its axis. When your tongue met his you could almost feel the marrow in your bones liquefying, your toes curling, a needy sigh escaping from you as Clyde pulled you closer still. You scratched at the back of his neck as you pressed nearer and the noise he made was positively _sinful_ \- you were determined to make him make that noise repeatedly as often as possible. He nipped at your bottom lip, dragging his teeth against the sensitive skin before finally pulling back, releasing your lip from between his teeth at the last second, his cheeks flushed with desire rather than bruising, his eyes glistening with excitement instead of fear. 

“We gotta keep this decent before the nurse comes in and finds us...”. His voice was heavy with need, his words making your nerves sizzle. 

“Mmm, yep, you’re right, gotta keep it decent here. Nurses.” Clearly, he’d short-circuited your brain with a single kiss. “Maybe we could make things... not-decent... once you’re home?” 

“You mean indecent?” 

“ _Fuck yes_.” 

“You have my word, baby.” 

And with those five words, it was official - you were one hundred, one million, one trillion percent gone for Clyde Logan. 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 🚨🚨🚨SMUT KLAXON🚨🚨🚨

Christmas Eve rolled around, and with it came Clyde’s release from hospital. He’d called Mellie bright and early a little before eight a.m. to tell her of his imminent release into the wild - Mellie had responded by screaming the house down with excitement and promising to pick him up as soon as his doctor gave him the final okay to leave at around lunchtime. 

You’d been awake for a while when you heard Mellie’s excitement ringing through the house, wrapping up the gifts you’d purchased for the Logans in the guest bedroom. She’d taken you to a mall in Charleston so you could buy a couple of extra outfits and essentials since you were staying longer, and while you were there you’d spotted a few things you’d hoped your new friends would like. For Jimmy, Sylvia and Sadie you’d purchased tickets for the latest Disney on Ice show that was coming to Charleston in the New Year; for Mellie, you’d found a pair of black, glittering cowboy boots lined with fleece on sale in a tucked-away shoe shop - practical, cosy and also fierce, you hoped Mellie would love them. For Clyde, you’d pushed the boat out a little further. On the first night you’d spent in Boone County, when you’d stayed up all night reading online about Clyde’s surgery and possible complications, you’d discovered that now he was without a spleen he could be more susceptible to infection. You’d found a website that sold medic-alert bracelets - to anyone else it would look like regular men’s jewellery, but on the inside there was a section engraved with Clyde’s name, date of birth, blood type and the procedure he’d had carried out. You’d chosen a horseshoe link design, similar to the ring you’d noticed him wearing, and by some miracle the site owner had rushed the order through and mailed it to you express delivery so you’d have it ready to wrap and place under the tree in Mellie’s living room. Alongside the bracelet (which you’d convinced yourself was purely practical, and therefore a _boring_ gift on its own) you’d bought an iPod and filled it with playlists full of your favourite music. You knew that, eventually, you’d have to leave Clyde in West Virginia and return to Vermont, but you wanted to leave a little bit of yourself here to keep Clyde company. 

You pushed thoughts of leaving out of your mind. You didn’t have to be back at work until January 2nd, and you had Christmas with the Logans to look forward to first. You tightened a silver ribbon around Clyde’s gifts and went downstairs to celebrate with Mellie.

——————

Celebrating meant tidying the house from top to bottom, then escorting Mellie while she rushed around town making sure everything was organised and _just right_. Soon enough you’d visited almost every store in town and the car was packed with food, drinks and last-minute gifts. After quickly dashing home to unpack the car and change into something less grungy, the two of you were zooming up the 119 to Charleston, singing along with Christmas tunes on the radio, both ecstatic to be getting Clyde home for the holidays.

Pulling into the car park beside the hospital, Mellie went over the arrangements with you one more time.

“Everything’s prepared? The food, snacks... beers chilling?”

You nodded, ticking items off the list you’d scribbled on the back of an envelope the night before. “Yep, all covered. Jimmy’s picking up Sadie at one, so they should get in a little before we do...”

Mellie checked her lipgloss in the mirror, humming in acknowledgment as you checked the list once more. “We ready?”

You unclicked your seatbelt and reached for your bag. “So ready.” 

With a sisterly fist bump and a flash of her bright smile, the two of you jumped out of the car and made your way to the hospital...

...only to find Clyde and his hospital bag leaning peacefully against the wall beside the main entrance. He looked you up and down, gave you a shy wave and pulled himself up from the wall. “Thought you two’d never make it.”

Mellie stormed over to her brother, slapping his right arm before grimacing, covering her mouth. “Sorry! Sorry, I forgot you’re hurt... what the hell are you doing out here Clyde, it’s freezing an’ snowing and you should be inside. We’re here to pick you up!”

Clyde rubbed his right shoulder with the cast wrapped right around his left forearm. “You’re here, I’m here, you can pick me up just fine. Besides, I ain’t been out here long, and I was enjoying the fresh air before y’assaulted me.” 

Mellie murmured more apologies, hoisting his bag over her shoulder and leading him back to the car. You’d held back watching the siblings interact - this was the first time you’d seen Clyde fully upright instead of being marooned in a hospital bed, and you couldn’t get over just how big he was, not just in comparison to Mellie, but also in comparison to you. Tall and broad in a cosy-looking loose hoody, sweatpants and a knitted hat pulled down to his ears - Jimmy’s doing, he’d mentioned bringing Clyde some clothes the day before -, you wanted nothing more to go over and wrap yourself up inside his arms.

Which is exactly what he did, once Mellie had left the two of you to take his bag to the car.

“S’nice to finally get to hold you properly”, you mumbled against his chest, careful not to squeeze him too tight, conscious of the still-bandaged wounds on his torso. 

He held you a little tighter than you dared, scratching softly between your shoulder blades as he relaxed into your arms. “Yeah, I’ve wanted to hold you for... for a long time now. Longer than you think.”

You leaned back to look up at him, tucking a stray tendril of dark hair behind his ear. “I think you’d be surprised how long I’ve wanted this.”

Before he could say or do more, the moment was broken by Mellie’s car horn blaring into the cold December air.

“C’mon lovebirds, let’s get moving!”

——————

Mellie slowed the car and swung into another parking lot.

“What’re we doing here?” Clyde was instantly suspicious.

“I just need to check on a couple of things, can you help?” 

“Mellie, I don’t know if you noticed, but I just got out of hospital after having an organ pulled outta my belly. M’not really in the mood -“

Mellie fixed Clyde with a serious business stare, opened her door and pointed at the building ahead. “We’re goin’ inside, Clyde. Move.”

You leaned forward from your seat in the back and scratched your fingers through Clyde’s hair in a gesture you hoped he’d find reassuring. It worked enough to get the two of you out of the car and following Mellie’s path to Duck Tape’s door. She held the door open, and beckoned Clyde inside. 

“Just give me five minutes while I find what I need...”. She fumbled along the wall for the light switch, and when her fingers hit it, all hell broke loose.

——————

To say Clyde was overwhelmed by the effort Mellie, Jimmy and friends had gone to was the understatement of the year. Not only was the bar packed with warm, smiling faces - Jimmy, Sylvia and a super-excited Sadie standing front and centre of the group -, but it was clean and tidy too - everything exactly as you’d expect to find in a popular bar, no broken glass or bloody streaks on the floor, no empty cash register or beaten owner. When he’d eventually got over his initial shock at the gathering, he’d settled and introduced you to the unfamiliar members of the group, Boone County characters and fellow business owners who couldn’t sit back and watch a friend and colleague suffer. Mellie and Jimmy had been working magic over the last few days; a local carpentry team had come in and fixed the broken bar, storage and shelving; painters and glaziers had followed to clean up the windows, walls and surfaces; Clyde’s regular drinks wholesaler had replaced everything that had been stolen or smashed for free; and a company had come from out of state to collect the smashed-up jukebox, leaving bluetooth speakers rigged up to a music-packed phone to keep the atmosphere going while the jukebox was fixed. You could see it had taken every ounce of strength in Clyde not to break down right there in front of everyone as the enormity of what the town had done for him sunk in, but somehow he’d kept his cool, thanked everyone three times over and told them drinks were on the house.

Just like at the hospital, you were happy to stand back and watch Clyde navigate his way around the group of well-wishers; he was reserved but still kind and gracious to everyone he spoke to, shaking hands and kissing cheeks, directing them to the bar to get whatever they wanted once they’d said hello. He found you later on, curled up by the far corner of the bar and sipping on one of Mellie’s cocktail creations; he ran his hand across the back of your shoulders before sitting on the stool beside you, leaning over to cautiously sniff the contents of your glass.

“Jesus, what the hell’s in that?”

You grinned, shrugging and taking another sip, licking the thick syrupy pink cocktail from your lips before responding. 

“Ask Mellie, she’s captain tonight. Tastes good though.” You held the glass out, offering it to him. 

He glanced down at it for a moment, licked his lips, took the glass from you and, just when you thought he was going to try some of the concoction for himself, he pushed the glass to one side, squeezed your hand tight, led you through the busy bar and out across the parking lot, taking a left down a dirt track lit only by multicoloured Christmas lights strung up in the trees before coming to a stop outside a silver trailer. 

Clyde dropped your hand and leaned forward, resting his weight on his hand as he gripped the metal rail that led up the few steps to the door. 

“M’sorry for dragging you out here like that -“

“Don’t be.”

“- I just needed to get out of there. Too many people, too much noise and lights, and you were just sitting there lookin’ so damn beautiful at the bar - _my bar_ -, an’ I realised I’d hardly talked to you all night...”

You stepped closer, turning to lean back against the cold railings that Clyde was clinging on to, placing your hand over the cast on his left arm as you spoke. “Clyde, sweetheart, it’s okay to feel overwhelmed - you’ve been through so much, it’s all bound to hit you at some point -“

All of a sudden, he hushed you with his lips on yours, manoeuvring you backwards to cage you between his body and the wall of the trailer. You hissed and arched into him and away from the cold metal of the wall behind you, taking the chance to pull him closer, gripping the sides of the thick hoody he’d worn home from hospital earlier that day. 

While the kiss had been intended to quieten you, it had the opposite effect. Clyde’s clever mouth had you moaning into him, gasping out a wanton hiss of his name when his lips travelled from your mouth to your jawline and neck as he buried his face in the hollow between your neck and shoulder. In return, you simultaneously pulled his body closer and pressed yours into his, slipping a cold hand under his hoody and T-shirt to finally graze over his back. When you scratched your nails down his spine he finally pulled his mouth from lapping up your neck and below your ear, sighing your name before taking you by the hand once more, leading you up the steps and into the dark trailer.

He didn’t bother with lights, just pulled and locked the door behind him once the two of you were safely inside. Despite the chill outside the trailer felt warm, the air in the room charged as you waited for Clyde to say, or do, something.

He didn’t leave you waiting for long. He kissed you hard, using his teeth to nip your lip just the way you liked as he moved you towards the cushioned bench seating that wrapped around the closest end of the trailer. You fell against the seat and pressed yourself against him when he sat beside you, spending ages making out like eager teenagers as you learned how to make him gasp and moan.

“Still think I’m layin’ in that hospital bed, dreamin’ that you’re here with me.”

You pulled the hoody you’d been coveting all day over his head and tossed it to the other side of the bench. “Was I a nice surprise?”

“Best surprise I ever had. M’so damn happy you’re here...”

He reached for you, pulling you to straddle his lap as his lips returned to yours, your hands running over his broad chest. Your touch was light, hesitant over his torso, all too aware of the dressings that remained over his wounds, as well as the lingering bruising you knew would be covering his stomach and ribs. 

He could sense your hesitation, taking your hand in his and slipping his fingers between yours. “S’okay, we don’t gotta do anything more than this if you don’t want to...“

“Oh no Clyde, I _do_ want, so much... I just don’t want to hurt you.”

“Y’won’t, as long as I stay sitting upright - layin’ down pulls at the sutures too much...”

You stroked over his chest a little bolder, sucking your lip between your teeth as you watched his expression. “So... if we stay like this... it won’t hurt you... and you’d - you’d want to, with me?” 

His eyes shone, gaze soft and warm as her tenderly caressed your face in his one big hand. “Baby girl, there ain’t no-one else I’ve wanted more.”

——————

There was no more hesitation after that. The two of you shed your clothing quickly and returned to your position on the bench, Clyde’s grip on you firm as he held you in his lap, his cock hard and straining pressed as it was between your bodies. He could feel you slick and hot against his thigh, and not for the first time he could have wept for the lack of his left hand, desperate to keep you held tight against him with one arm while he explored your heat with the fingers of the other.

You could sense his frustration, so you repositioned yourself enough so that your full weight was on your knees pressed into the soft fabric of the cushion bench, freeing his arm to explore. You stroked your hands over the expanse of his chest and torso, mapping his body with your fingertips, unable to stop yourself from grinding down on his thick thigh when he dipped his head to take your nipple between his lips, painting stripes across your breast with his tongue. When you raised up higher on your knees to give him greater access to your breasts he slipped his hand under you, his fingers easily slipping between your folds, his thumb magnetised to your clit as soon as you pressed down onto his hand.

The two of you groaned in unison as he touched you, his middle finger circling your hole as his thumb dragged across your clit. “Y’feel so good, better than I could have imagined...”

You nodded, pressing your forehead against his as he worked you with his hand. “So much better than my own hand, Clyde, so much better...”

Hearing that, he slid one finger inside, then another, crooking his fingers to press up and against your walls. “How ‘bout that, still feel better...?”

“Fuck _yes_ ,” you gasped and rode his hand, circling your hips around him as he pumped his fingers inside, the sweat on your bodies glistening, illuminated by the Christmas lights that shone in the trees outside. 

“Gonna cum on me, baby? Can I get you there just with my fingers...?” He sounded like he could barely believe it himself, his voice hoarse with desire and disbelief that you really were here in his embrace, letting him touch you this way.

Trembling as you clung to the back of the bench behind him, you quickly nodded and sighed out an ecstatic “ _god, more_ ” when his thumb pressed hard against your clit, his fingers buried inside you finding just the right spot to touch. You weren’t sure if it was the Christmas lights or stars you saw when he brought you to climax, moaning and writhing against his body as you repeated his name over and over. 

When you had settled into a warm, post-orgasmic glow, Clyde slid his fingers out from you and dragged them up your body, enraptured by the slick trail they left on your skin before he hovered his fingertips over your lips. You didn’t dare break eye contact as you greedily took them in your mouth, sucking his thick fingers clean as you moved to position yourself over Clyde’s straining cock. You reached to hold him against you, circling your thumb over the precum that had been steadily dripping down him since he’d started touching you with intent, and the sinful sounds he made were delicious.

“I’ve got a condom in my purse, just lemme go get it...” 

You contorted your body to reach over to the other side of the curved bench, pulling at a cushion until your purse was in your grasp. You retrieved the little foil square and passed it to Clyde, who worked it onto himself one-handed through some kind of wizardry - you had no idea how he’d done it, especially with you balanced on his lap, but it was on and you were impressed. 

“C’mere baby, I need you...”

You hadn’t realised the extent of your voice kink until he groaned those words against the shell of your ear, and you couldn’t dare deny him. You lowered yourself onto him slowly, giving your body time to adjust to his more than ample girth. He was thick, hot and hard as he breached you, his head tipped back, his plump lips parted in either ecstasy or relief when he was fully sheathed inside. 

He was _inside_ you, and for a moment you thought he wouldn’t even need to move within you to make you cum again. You basked in the sensation of being so full, so totally surrounded by the man until your body relaxed enough to let you start to circle your hips, moving slowly over him. Electricity prickled along your spine with every movement, your skin burning wherever he touched you. You’d never felt anything quite like it. Trying to calm yourself, you licked along his lips, encouraging him to move in you, with you, and slowly he began to comply. 

The trailer was filled with the sound of your breathing, of your skin on his, slick movements and ragged sighs as you rose and fell over his body. Clyde had spread his arms out either side of him to rest along the back of the bench, letting you hold on and ride him for dear life. Flushed and gasping, barely illuminated by the colourful lights from outside, he thought - no, _he knew_ \- that you were the most beautiful creature he’d ever had the privilege to set eyes on. He couldn’t help the lewd groan that fell from his mouth when he watched you rub your clit, bringing yourself on as you fucked him, arching your back as another rush of release flooded your body. He’d been half-hard all day since you’d picked him up from hospital, and he’d barely been able to stop from embarrassing himself when you’d slid your hand under his shirt and pressed your cold hand against his skin. This was the most _alive_ he’d felt in months and months, maybe even since the rush of the Speedway heist, he loved it, loved _you_ , and it was this dawning realisation that pushed him over his own peak, thrusting and losing himself in the sensation as he moaned and sighed and gasped your name.

It was Christmas Eve, Clyde was home, healing, safe and warm, and he was in love. He moved just enough to pull the condom from his body and toss it into the bin, and then returned you into the warmth of his arms. He couldn’t bear the thought of you being anywhere else.


	11. Chapter 11

You were exhausted, utterly spent, limbs like jelly and stomach muscles aching from over-use. Just when you felt yourself dozing off, pulled tight and warm against Clyde’s body as he whispered gently in your ear, you heard the faint buzz of your phone. You shook yourself awake enough to press your lips against Clyde’s neck and reached across for your purse once more, digging out your phone to check the time. 

You squeezed your eyes shut as the harsh white light from the screen blazed from your palm, intruding on the dark warmth of Clyde’s home. You found a missed call (Mellie) and a handful of texts waiting for you. “It’s a little after six... Mellie’s looking for us... Jimmy too, says he’s sending a search party over here if we don’t get a move on...”

Clyde grumbled, kissing your bare shoulder before manoeuvring himself out from under you and untangling your clothes from the pile on the floor. You buried your phone in your bag again and skipped into the bathroom, freshening up as best you could and stealing a slick of Clyde’s deodorant to try and mask the post-sex haze you knew surrounded you. The last thing you wanted was to be on the receiving end of Mellie’s, or worse, Jimmy’s wicked wisecracks for the rest of the night. You dressed quickly, tidying your hair and smoothing some balm on your over-kissed lips, and found Clyde waiting outside the bathroom door. 

“We dressed quick... reckon they’ll wait another few minutes before sendin’ Jimmy over...”. His low drawl was intoxicating, his hand already pulling you against his chest as his lips pressed into your forehead, cheeks and mouth. Oh well, another five minutes wouldn’t hurt.

Clyde was making it very difficult to return to the party. By the time you’d dragged yourselves out of the trailer and halfway up the track that led back to Duck Tape, Clyde had added a fresh constellation of hickeys to your neck and, weirdly, your wrists, and had been halfway to pressing you against a tree and going wild against you when Jimmy’s voice had cracked through the cold December air. 

“I told you I’d come lookin’, Clyde! You’re missin’ your own party!”

Clyde groaned, cursing his older brother, and reluctantly pulled his fingers from working their way under your clothes before Jimmy and Earl rounded the corner, beers in their hands and leering at the two of you as they led you back to the bar. You gripped his arm tight and followed the men back to the party, wishing instead you could return to the trailer and get acquainted with Clyde once more.

Luckily, the gathering was winding down by the time you got back, most of the guests keen to say their goodbyes before heading home to get prepared for the next day’s festivities. Sylvia helped Mellie to pack away tubs of leftover snacks and drinks while Clyde thanked the other guests once again as they left, Jimmy flipping seats onto tables while you and little Sadie worked quickly to sweep the floor and bag up any rubbish. Despite the festive excitement coursing through her, Sadie was an excellent helper, and before you knew it the two of you had swept the whole floor, gathered up all the rubbish you could find and switched off all the Christmas lights and decorations while the others finished their chores. Clyde was content to simply watch, the excitement of the day clearly catching up with him as he battled heavy eyelids and heavier yawns, tucked into one of the booths near the door.

You couldn’t resist going over and wrapping your arms around him, uncaring if the other Logan’s saw, pressing a damp, sloppy kiss against his scalp as he embraced you, pressing his face into your stomach as you stood over him. Another small body squeezed against you, and you glanced down to find Sadie tucking herself under Clyde’s plastered arm, yawning as she hugged her uncle. Pushing his own fatigue to one side, he scooped the little girl up with his good arm as she flopped sleepily against his shoulder, calling quietly to Jimmy.

“This little lady’s waiting for Santa Claus, Jim. Better get her home ‘fore she misses him.”

Sadie’s voice was soft yet heavy with sleep, her arms curled around Clyde’s neck as she spoke, “Won’t miss him, Uncle Clyde... he can’t come til I’m in bed at home and sleepin’...”

Jimmy ruffled her hair, scooping his daughter out of Clyde’s grip and into his own as Sylvia joined them. “Then it’s time to get you home, missy. If you don’t get any presents from Santa, I won’t either, and what kinda Christmas would that be?”

Once everything was locked up secure you waved Jimmy and his girls off as they headed out on the long drive towards Lynchburg. It’d be past midnight before they’d get back, and you hoped they’d make it home before a fresh heap of snow hit overnight. Mellie’s car was warm and toasty as she drove the three of you along the quiet illuminated streets that led back to her place, parking up by the side of the house and gathering Clyde’s hospital bag from the trunk. He’d been snoring in the car on the short journey back, and you knew that despite the success of the party, she was keen to get him inside the house and comfortable, home and safe again at last.

Once inside, Clyde trudged upstairs to the bathroom while you and Mellie packed away the last of the car’s contents and arranged your gifts under the tree. You couldn’t remember the last time you’d had a proper Christmas - you’d never really bothered with a tree or decorations since you’d moved to Vermont, and Riley’s family had celebrated none of the usual traditions. It wasn’t until Mellie had pressed you into a warm hug that you realised you’d been crying.

“Sweetie what is it? Is it Clyde? Or Jimmy, did he say somethin’?”

You shook your head and wiped your face on your hands, gulping out a half-laugh, half-sob as Mellie squeezed you. “No no I’m fine, honest, just overwhelmed, I haven’t bothered with Christmas for years and... fuck, I’m really _happy_! I really -“

Another hiccuped sob, you wiped your face again.

“- I really love it here, love being with you all and Clyde, and... oh god I think I love Clyde...”

Mellie’s smile was wide and sweet as she stroked your hair. “Well of course you do, s’obvious.”

It was? “It is?”

She rolled her eyes fondly. “Oh honey, come on. You don’t travel all this way and stay with a bunch of strangers for someone you ain’t in love with. We all knew soon as you arrived at the hospital.”

She was right, of course she was. This was what you’d been missing with Riley, the toe-curling, bone-deep _love_ that had settled inside you almost as soon as you and Clyde had started talking properly, and you’d never dared acknowledge it out loud before. She was right. The more you thought about it, the more obvious it became, _of course you loved him_ , nothing else made any sense at all. You loved him, and laughter bubbles in your throat at the realisation. You grinned and laughed, pulling Mellie into a slightly more awkward hug as she teetered on her heels, patting your arms and steadying herself against you. 

“Okay sweetie, okay... Merry Christmas Eve an’ all, but I have a date with Netflix and laundry in my room so I’m jus’ gonna go leave you to it... Go check on Clyde, make sure he hasn’t fallen asleep in the bath or something willya?”

You skipped upstairs, taking the steps two at a time and found the bathroom deserted. You checked the tiny box bedroom/store and found it empty too. You could hear Mellie singing carols to herself as she sorted laundry in her bedroom, which just left the guest room - your room - to check.

Sure enough, when you quietly slipped into the bedroom you found Clyde, half naked and snoring, sat propped up against the headboard, his head drooping against his shoulder as he slept. The day’s excitement had finally overwhelmed him, and for a moment you felt guilty wondering just how long he’d been tired for, and whether you should have tried to persuade Mellie to take him straight home from hospital instead of the party... You chased the thought away as you undressed and changed into your loose pyjamas, promising yourself to brush your teeth for double the time in the morning so you could climb in beside Clyde quicker tonight. He barely stirred as you curled up beside him under the blankets, careful not to touch any of the dressings or bruises on his belly as you stretched your arm over his chest. All too soon Clyde’s steady breathing dragged you into a deep, peaceful, dreamless sleep, wrapped up tight and warm beside your lover.


	12. Chapter 12

The clock was blinking a little after four in the morning when you woke up, too hot underneath the thick quilt and blankets. Clyde had shuffled further down into the bed behind you as he slept, still on his back but pressed as close as his sleepy form could get to you. 

The house was silent; Mellie’s singing and TV long since quietened, Clyde’s sleepy snoring hushed, not even a car passing on the street outside. The silence wrapped around you like a haze and you basked in it, stretching out in the bed and adjusting your position as you rolled over. 

Carefully, trying your best not to disturb him, you turned to face Clyde, stretching out the pleasant ache that still lingered in your muscles as your eyes adjusted to the dark and Clyde’s form cleared into view. 

He was beautiful; you’d known that as soon as Mellie had sent you the illicit picture of Sadie flanked by the Logan brothers days before, but it was all the more obvious lying beside him in the pale half-light of Christmas morning. 

It didn’t help that every time you’d set your eyes on him he’d been in pain - even last night, in his trailer, every loving grasp had been followed by a wince he’d tried so hard to hide - but he looked so much younger when he slept, at peace and rested. Waves of dark hair curled around his cheekbones, below his earlobes, and danced just beyond the reach of his shoulders; your fingers longed to get lost in his locks. You counted each freckle and mole that you found scattered across his pale skin, even those hidden among the the stubble and goatee on his jaw and chin. You loved him, and the knowledge bloomed and burned inside you; you loved him, and you knew that in a matter of days you’d have to go, fly home and leave him behind with no idea when you’d see him again.

“You’re thinkin’ too loud, I can hear you in my sleep...” His voice was scratchy and low as he opened one eye slowly, seeking you out in the dark. 

_You loved him._

“We can make this work, can’t we Clyde?”

He snapped more alert at your tone and question, rubbing each eye in turn and carefully rolling onto his right hand side, mirroring your position before him.

“What brought this on? Are you doubtin’ us?”

You sighed, trying to untangle the words and emotions that were flying around your head and heart. Clyde’s expression had changed from sleepy warmth to concern, and you already hated that you’d planted a seed of doubt in his mind. 

“I’m just... I’m just sad, I think?”

Even in the dark bedroom you could clearly see Clyde’s brow crinkling in worry. “Sad? Did I do something?”

“No! Maybe sad’s the wrong word...”

You took a deep breath, straightening your thoughts out. “I’m really happy here, seriously. Mellie and Jimmy have been so kind the last few days, and you’re so... you’re _you_ , and brilliant. I was so worried about you when Mellie told me what had happened, I’m so bloody glad I came here because seeing you for real, knowing that you’re safe and healing... I’m really happy. I don’t want it to end, and I’m sad because I know it will...”

“Baby... It don’t gotta end if we don’t want it to.”

“I still have to leave.”

He was almost whispering now, his plaster-cast arm resting lightly over the rise of your hip. “You don’t, not if you don’t want to.”

“I have to, Clyde.”

“Why?”

You frowned and rubbed at your forehead; there were reasons, of course there were.

“My job, for a start. My apartment, my _life_...” You were clutching at straws, you and Clyde both knew how lonely you were in Vermont; you’d told him all about how sometimes the only people you spoke to outside of work were the baristas in the cafe you got breakfast in on Sundays and the girl who worked in the store at the end of your street. Your diary wasn’t packed with friends or appointments, but you’d packed up your little life just for a man before, and you couldn’t do that again. 

“I just _can’t_ , Clyde. Not right now, not when everything’s so new. I can’t put myself in that position again. It would be so easy, so easy to just ditch everything and run here to you... and you have to know there’s a part of me that wants to. But if I... if _we_ are gonna do that, we have to do it properly, at the right time, because we want to, not because we think it’s the only way... does that make any sense at all?”

You’d had your eyes closed as you spoke, knowing already that Clyde’s deep brown eyes could persuade you of almost anything. You had to be firm about this, for his sake as well as your own. Despite his imposing stature and stoic demeanour, you knew he was a sensitive man who felt things deeply - the fact he was suggesting, in the early hours of Christmas morning, that you leave Vermont to be with him proved as much. Rushing anything would lead to heartache for both of you, and you’d do anything in your power to avoid that. You opened your eyes and waited for him to respond, hoping against hope that you hadn’t spoiled his Christmas before it had really begun.

Clyde’s right arm was trapped between your warm bodies but despite the awkward position he reached for you as best he could, wriggling his fingers until you placed your hand in his. “I meant what I said last night, we don’t gotta rush into anything you’re not comfortable with. M’just glad I get to keep you here for a couple more days - after that, we’ll go back to how we were before, okay? We can visit each other, too... it’ll be okay, I promise.”

You shuffled closer and pressed your lips to his, pouring as much of the love you felt but hadn’t dared admit to him into it as you could, praying he’d understand. He responded just as passionately, his kisses saying everything he couldn’t voice as the few items of clothing you both wore were shed and he’d gathered you on top of him once more. He nudged at you and rolled his hips experimentally, his hard length trapped against the gathering slickness of your heat. You were dragging your lips against his neck when you heard his whisper against your ear.

“If you wanna... I mean, I ain’t ever done this without a condom, so I know I’m clean...” he almost sighed against your ear, his tongue tripping over his words, “...if I’m talkin’ outta line you can say, we can stop or whatever -“

You grinned against his jaw, kissing against him and nodding, “I’m clean too, and birth controlled to the max...”

He needed no more encouragement, the words barely out of your mouth as he moved enough to let you sink down onto him, gasping as you stretched around him to take him fully. You’d spend the next day aching but god it was worth it when he felt like this, and the groans he made as you started circling your hips were _obscene_. You put on a show, arching your back and stretching above him as you moved, curling your arms behind your head because you knew it made your breasts look ridiculously good from this angle. His eyes were wide when you dragged one hand to cup your right breast, pinching your nipple hard enough to make you hiss. He reached for you, his large hand pawing at your left breast as he copied your action, rubbing and squeezing as your nipple pebbled hard against his skin. 

When he dropped his hand from your breast you sighed, gasping out, “Don’t stop, I love it when you touch me”, covering both breasts with your hands as you tried to replicate Clyde’s touch. His eyes were hooded as he watched you touch yourself and clench around him, riding him so good. He bit his tongue to stop his mouth from running on him, too close to pouring out his feelings to you, dragging his hand back to your body and pressing his thumb where your bodies joined, letting you work your clit on it as you moved.

It felt exquisite, Clyde’s touch everywhere you wanted, everywhere you’d dreamed of. Your head tipped back and your body arched, your fingers kneading your breasts to the point of pain. He choked out a wanton “baby, _fuck_ ,” as your hips quickened, thanking the old gods and the new that the springs in Mellie’s guest bed were silent as your bodies thrust and moved together. 

His hand gripped your thigh tight enough to bruise as he thrust up into you, biting down hard on his lip to stop from crying out when you clenched around him and scratched at his chest. You leaned forward, bracing yourself on your hands planted either side of his head as you kissed into him hard, tasting every part of his mouth as you ground your pussy against him. You were soaking wet for him, slipping against him with ease as his thrusts faltered, swallowing down his moans while he filled you with his cum, his cock twitching inside you over and over as his moans turned to ruined sighs and his head fell back to the pillow. 

He looked _wrecked_ , hair wild across the pillow, his skin flushed, chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath. Still his thumb pressed against you, urging you on. You could feel his cum start to leak but neither of you cared as he used his thumb on your swollen, sensitive nub, your nerves alight as he coaxed your orgasm from your body. One minute it felt like it was still building, the next it crashed through you with just a flick of his wrist, twisting his thumb this way and that as you rocked and sighed, covering your mouth with both hands as you tried to muffle yourself. 

When you’d calmed enough to open your eyes, Clyde’s expression was cocky, his plastered arm curled beneath his pillow as he gazed up at you. Eyes fixed on yours, he slowly pulled his thumb away from your body, taking it in his mouth and sucking it clean of both your fluids. A fresh wave of lust tingled under your skin as you watched him, his lips curling into a wicked smile - he knew exactly the effect he had on you. Playfully you poked his chest and shimmied as gracefully as you could off his body, tiptoeing into the guest bathroom and cleaning up as quickly as you could. By the time you got back to bed Clyde had moved so he was sitting rather than lying down - you could tell he’d overdone it and his wounds were sore. Not bothering to ask permission, you dug through his hospital bag and retrieved the prescription of painkillers he’d been sent home with, fetching a small glass of water from the bathroom. He took two of the pills gladly, his eyes fluttering closed as you climbed back into bed and tucked yourself under his arm. He kissed the top of your head, stroking your shoulder as you lay together, warm and sated. 

“We could sleep right through the whole day, and this’d still count as the best Christmas ever,” he murmured against your scalp, scratching his fingernails lightly against your upper arm.

“I think Mellie would drag us out of here eventually- she’s got so much food prepared, drinks too... she threatened board games, Clyde. I had to draw the line at Monopoly.”

He chuckled and pulled the quilt a little higher, tucking it around you. “No good ever comes from Logan games, believe me. Usually ends up in one of us gettin’ arrested...”. He trailed off, and you thought he was going to continue until he yawned hard, eyeing the clock over your shoulder. “Half six... reckon we’ve got another three hours before Mellie wakes up and wants us downstairs to open our gifts.”

“Three whole hours, huh?” You tilted your head to look up at him, trying to hide the mischievous grin that curled the corners of your mouth, “...however will we entertain ourselves for all that time?”

“Gimme thirty minutes to recharge, then we’ll see.”

You gave him twenty.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas! Mellie is absolutely channelling the spirit of Noddy Holder in this chapter (if you don’t know who he is, grab some glitter and get in the spirit by searching for Slade - “Merry Christmas Everybody” on YouTube. You’re welcome).

Just as Clyde had predicted, at half past nine Mellie's voice broke the silence inside the house as she yelled "IT'S CHRISTMAS!" like a British 1970's glam rocker from downstairs, summoning the two of you from the bedroom.  Neither of you had slept since you'd granted Clyde twenty-minutes of respite in the early hours, having spent the intervening time exploring each other's bodies and learning just how to make each other scream (well, muffle your screams into Mellie's now utterly abused guest pillows), and only the knowledge that Mellie _would_ physically drag the two of you from the bedroom regardless of your state of undress stopped you from ignoring her shout and pulling the quilt over your heads.  
   
Festive excitement finally buzzing though your veins, you skipped into the bathroom and showered quickly, freeing up the facilities for Clyde.  He showered while you dressed and dried your hair roughly, emerging from the bathroom half-dressed with a bag of sterile dressings in his hand.  He didn't even need to ask - you knew he couldn't change his bandages himself, so while he sat on the corner of the bed you carefully pulled away the four damp dressings that covered each wound and replaced each with a dry, sterile one.  He'd been so lucky - from your panicked Googling on the plane, you'd read that emergency spleen removals usually meant open abdominal surgery and a long scar running down the middle of the belly.  Clyde's surgeons had managed to do the whole thing through keyhole surgery, leaving four little cuts spread across his abdomen that would heal much more quickly.   
   
Clyde was staring at the ceiling as you replaced each dressing, his hand gripping the mattress and his whole body radiating squeamish tension.  "How am I lookin'?  Still a mess?"  
   
“Well, your bruises are fading nicely, and the cuts are smooth and sealed – no redness or ickiness at all.  When do you have to see the doctor again?”  
   
“Umm… 28th, I think?  They want to check the cuts an’ do scans or somethin’, make sure everything’s working as it should.  Said I need to take pills forever, too, to stop infection.”  
   
You hummed in acknowledgement – you’d read about the lifelong need for antibiotics on the plane.  “Taking a couple of pills everyday is better than the alternative.”  
   
“Yep.  If Mellie hadn’t found me when she did, I’d be dead – “  
   
“Don’t say that – “  
   
“S’true.  If her cab hadn’t come past the bar when it did, if she hadn’t spotted the lights and thought to come check in on me, I would’ve bled out on the floor.”  He pulled his t-shirt on as he spoke, his damp hair curling at the ends and dripping onto the collar. You wrapped your arms around him, stroking his broad back with both hands as you tried to soothe him. 

“Go easy on yourself, yeah? You’ve been through so much and had no time to process it all. You’re gonna feel wobbly for a while.”

He smiled weakly, kissing your temple. “‘Wobbly?’ I like that word. Pretty accurate too, feel like my head’s spinning.” 

You kissed his chin and pulled away, taking his hand in yours. “That’ll be the painkillers. Tell me if it gets worse, though.”

——————

Mellie was full of Christmas excitement when the two of you emerged, hugging you both and guiding you to the couch. Festive music played in the background, and the house smelled like it was spiced with cinnamon.

“Momma’s momma’s cookies - Mellie makes ‘em every year. Won’t tell anyone what’s in them -“

“That’s the point of secret recipes, Clyde, they gotta stay secret,” Mellie rolled her eyes fondly at her brother and thrust a package in your hands, “Merry Christmas, sweetie.”

You pulled the paper from the package and grinned, thanking Mellie with a hug. You’d admired the enormous blanket scarf she’d worn the day you’d met at the hospital, and she’d found another in slightly different colours for you. In return, you pulled the boot-box you’d wrapped up for her from below the tree and passed it over, grinning as she unwrapped the ridiculously glittered boots. “Damn, they’re so warm, I might just wear them all winter!”

Clyde unwrapped a new leather wallet from Jimmy and Sylvia (having lost his own in the robbery), and a Kindle from Mellie along with gift cards to buy all the ebooks it could hold. For his sister, Clyde had bought a neon pink tote bag, full of pockets and compartments for all the supplies she needed on her home salon appointments. Inside he’d hidden vouchers for a spa weekend at a fancy hotel in Charleston - you knew he worried that she worked too hard, especially recently, and this was his way of making sure she took some time out for herself. While Mellie unwrapped something that looked an awful lot like jewellery from someone you knew only as Joe, Clyde worked the paper off the gifts you’d purchased for him.

You watched as his face lit up with a wide smile as the iPod was revealed, and as the smile grew when he realised you’d filled it with playlists, albums and songs. You’d told him once, early on in the days when you only typed slow messages on a screen, that you thought music was the best way to get to know someone, so he knew you were opening yourself up wide to him with this. He kissed you soundly and murmured his thanks against your lips before he unwrapped the box containing the medic-alert bracelet. Suddenly you felt nervous - what if it was too much? What if he hated the style, or thought you’d crossed some sort of line?

Your anxieties dissolved when you saw his expression. He was _beaming_ , holding the bracelet out and examining it as he read his details engraved inside. Once he’d taken it all in he held it to you and you linked it around his wrist, straightening it out so you both could see it lying against his skin.

“Is it okay? If you’d like a different style I can swap it...“

He shook his head, using his plastered arm to pull you closer to him. “S’perfect baby, seriously. I love it.”

“You two are disgusting, I love it. I’m gonna go check on food.” Mellie’s exit was swift as she busied herself in the kitchen, leaving you alone with Clyde. 

“I got somethin’ for you, over there...” He pointed to a small square parcel wrapped in dark glitter-covered paper, tied with a shimmering gold bow. 

You unpeeled the bow and tape sealing the present carefully - the paper was thick, quality, sparkling with every shade of blue, purple and black as the light hit it. It wasn’t until you saw the sparkles up close that you realised why it looked familiar - your party dress, the one you’d left in a crumpled heap on your bedroom floor back in Vermont, sparkled just like it. 

The paper unfolded to reveal a plush red box edged with gilt filigree on the corners. You pressed the tiny catch and the lid released to reveal a curved silver bangle resting on a dark velveteen cushion. One half of the bangle had been hammered into a flatter, wider surface, upon which a scattering of tiny sparkles - you didn’t dare let yourself imagine them to be diamonds - dusted the surface. It was beautiful, heavy and strong in your hand yet still so elegant, catching the light and splitting it into all the component parts of the spectrum as you moved it in front of your eyes. You wanted to speak, but speech had escaped you. 

“The jeweller said it’s called the Constellation, because of the diamonds -“

_Oh god, they really were diamonds._

“- on the surface. I thought it looked real beautiful in the store, an’ you’d mentioned about watchin’ the stars back home so so thought it’d be nice for you. I hope you like it.” 

You swallowed the lump in your throat, dabbing your cheek as a wet droplet fell from your eye. “It... God, it’s so beautiful Clyde, I’ve never seen anything like it. I love it. Thank you, truly, for everything -“

And then his lips were on yours, and you didn’t need to say anything else.

——————

The rest of the day passed in a bubble of sheer joy. The three of you worked together to dish up an enormous Christmas lunch that would have easily fed double the number of people at the table, Clyde and Mellie both admitting they were glad to have been spared Jimmy’s always-overdone turkey this year. You and Mellie mixed bizarre and beautiful cocktails from bottles of spirits and mixers she’d liberated from Duck Tape, filling glasses with strong potions of every colour of the rainbow and forcing Clyde to taste each one. After the sixth, a bright green concoction made up mostly of Midori, lemonade and gin, he drew the line, washing his mouth out with Dr Pepper and refusing anymore alcohol on account of his painkillers. That didn’t stop him from playing bartender for you, and much of the afternoon and evening was spent watching Clyde show off with cocktail glasses, shakers and drinks.

By early evening the three of you were sluggish, all curled up on the couches as a film played in the background, having eaten (and drank) far too much. You lay with your head on a cushion on Clyde’s lap as he played with your hair, scratching lightly on the sensitive skin below your ear as he half-concentrated on the television. Mellie’s phone was glued to her ear as she sat on the line with the mysterious Joe who’d left her a sparkling necklace under the tree - you could sense Clyde’s suspicions, but he said nothing bad of the man, not even two hours later when Mellie announced she was going to visit “a friend” and that she’d be back later. 

“Tell Joe I said hi, Mellie. And his brothers.” 

“Thank you Clyde, I will. Merry Christmas! Don’t wait up!”

A little while later Clyde’s phone buzzed, and when he answered Sadie’s face appeared on screen - she’d discovered how to FaceTime and proceed to talk Clyde and you through each of the numerous gifts she’d received. Every doll, game, and outfit was demonstrated or described in precise detail, and by the time Sylvia and Jimmy appeared, their faces squished together on the screen as they discussed their day, you were warm and overwhelmed with love for the whole Logan crew. You hadn’t bothered celebrating the season for years and years, and had loved every minute of the day as well as the preceding days. When the call with Jimmy ended you climbed up to pepper Clyde’s face with kisses, spilling thanks from your lips in between each one. 

More kisses followed, and more still, even as the clock approached midnight and the two of you found yourselves tangled up in bed once more, sweat glistening and cooling on your skin. You were exhausted, aching in the best of ways, and happy to the point of bursting. Clyde’s expression mirrored your own, his lips puffy from your kisses, brown eyes sparkling as they watched you. He pressed his forehead to yours, kissing the tip of your nose as you traced your fingertips down his spine and pulled him closer, chest to chest, breathing him in. You lay like that for what could have been hours, senses on fire as your fingers skimmed his skin, his breath on your face, his kisses on your face. Just as you were hovering on the precipice of sleep the words left your mouth, hardly more than a whisper yet as loud as a shout in the silent room.

“I love you, Clyde. I love you.”

You held your breath, chewing your lip as you summoned the courage to pull back and focus on Clyde’s no doubt stunned face. 

He wasn’t stunned, or shocked. His eyes were closed, his breathing slow and steady. He was fast asleep, holding you tight against him, ignorant of your whispered confession. You pressed your lips to his once more and settled down on the pillow beside him, tucking your head beneath his chin and letting sleep claim you. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can’t seem to get links to work, but if you google for “Orro Constellation Bracelet” you’ll see Clyde’s gift for dear reader. ;)


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Parting is such sweet sorrow.

“You are beautiful.”

Clyde tightened his grip around your waist, unable to hide the smile that crossed his face in response to your words. “Baby, you are either blind or ridiculous. Maybe both.” 

“Ssh, you are. I’m gonna kiss you until you believe it.”

“If you try that, you’ll definitely miss your flight.”

“There’ll be another one.” You pressed up onto your tiptoes to return your lips to Clyde’s.

Beside you, Mellie huffed and pulled at your hand. “Clyde, let her go so I can say my goodbyes and go back to the car, being the third wheel here ain’t my style...” She wrenched you from Clyde’s vice-like grip and placed you in her own, kissing your cheek once before backing away and slipping a pair of unseasonal sunglasses to her face. “Now listen, you come back soon, whenever you want okay? Clyde’s gonna mope something fierce once you’re gone and I need an end date so I’ve got something to look forward to!”

You promised to return as soon as you could, squeezing her hands and thanking her for everything. She wouldn’t hear it, waving her hand dismissively. 

“Sweetie, you’re family now. Come back soon.” With another quick hug and a muffled sob, Mellie left the two of you in the bustling airport, her heels click-clacking on the white polished floor as she made her way back to her car.

While you watched Mellie disappear among the airport crowd Clyde returned you to his embrace, your back pulled tight against his chest as his arms (both flesh and plaster-covered) curled around you, his face pressed into the crook of your neck. He’d dreaded this day since the moment he’d been alert enough to realise you were really there beside him and not just a vivid, beautiful, opiate-induced hallucination curled up beside his hospital bed. 

Since Christmas Eve you’d spent almost every moment of the day and night together, and now, five days later, he hated the idea of not having you within touching distance. He’d grown used to the feeling of your skin against his, of your fingers laced between his own, of your lips pressed to his cheek, his neck, his collarbone, of your breath blowing in hot puffs against him as you slept with your head pillowed on his chest each night. The realisation that you would be hours away, more than eight hundred miles from his touch, was abhorrent to him. His skin already ached in anticipation of your departure.

Grudgingly, he accepted your reasons for not staying in Boone County forever - it was too soon (it wasn’t, not for him, but he said he accepted it anyway), you had your work, and you had your apartment in Burlington that had months left on its lease. He knew that when (he refused to believe it was an “if”) you did decide to leave Vermont and come back to him for good, it had to be entirely your decision - pressuring you would only push you away. But he also knew that Vermont wasn’t _home_ for you, not anymore. He’d realised that when he’d watched you and Mellie team up together to tease Jimmy for his lovesick, doe-eyed gazing at Sylvia in the bar on Christmas Eve; when you’d fallen asleep on the couch with your head on a cushion in his lap the night after Christmas while Mellie and Joe Bang grinned at him, it being his turn for teasing; when you’d woken early this morning and kissed every fading bruise and healing wound on his chest and back, telling him with a saucy wink that you were casting spells to make him heal quicker. Your home was with him, and eventually you’d realise that. When you did, Clyde would be there, ready, waiting and willing to give you everything you asked for. Until then, he had to let you go.

A noisy, almost incomprehensible announcement boomed from the overhead speakers. It was time.

“Gotta go get checked in, baby.”

Your head dropped, your hands clutching Clyde’s arm as he in turn held you tighter against him.

“Guess I better go.”

You turned in his arms and pressed your face to his neck, kissing your favourite spot just below his ear as he held you against him. You’d been determined not to cry but your determination had dissolved as soon as the tannoy announced your time for check in.

“I’ll call you as soon as I get back, as soon as I land...”

Gently, Clyde extracted your body from his, pulling your bag strap higher on your shoulder and pushing your hair back from your face. His eyes were swimming but he forced himself to be strong, else he’d just cling and beg you to stay. “I’ll be here. Call me anytime, okay? It’ll be just like before, just better now, I promise.”

You kissed him hungrily, desperately, trying to ignore the rush of passengers who dodged you as they made their way to their departure gates. “I’ll come back soon, as soon as I can.”

Clyde guided you to face the barrier that led through to security and into departures, squeezing you in a back-to-front hug and kissing your neck, then your cheek, then the corner of your mouth one last time. “An’ I’ll be waitin’ right here for you. Now, you gotta go.”

You wiped your face, took a deep breath and walked through the gate that swallowed you into the security line and into the belly of the airport. Clyde stood solid, ignoring the passengers who pushed past him, and watched until the airport took you from him. Once he was sure he couldn’t spot a glimpse of you any longer, he turned and made his way back to Mellie’s car, pulling the peak of his cap down over his brow and wiping his eyes on his sleeve.

——————

It was only once you’d dragged yourself through security that you realised with stomach-dropping horror that _you hadn’t told him_. You’d meant to, you had psyched yourself up in the back of the car on the way to the airport to bite the bullet and tell him your feelings before you left, but it had all happened too quickly and now it was too late. You pulled at the hood of the enormous sweater that swamped your body, the same one Clyde had worn home from hospital, hid your face in the fabric and sobbed fresh hot tears into your hands.

——————

Mellie let Clyde wallow silently in the passenger seat for a good ten minutes before she poked him in the thigh and held out her hand.

“What?” 

“Gimme that iPod she gave you. I know it’s in your pocket. Plug it in.”

He did as he was told, connecting the device to the cable and listened as the first song filled the small car. 

_”Get me a drink, I get drunk off one sip just so I can adore you,_  
_I want the entire street out of town just so I can be alone with you,_  
_Now go when you're ready my head's getting heavy pressed against your arm,_  
_I adore you...”_

Mellie listened to the chorus and hummed. “Your girl’s pretty obvious with her song choices, huh?”, she whispered, glancing quickly from the road ahead to her brother.

“What d’you mean?”

“The lyrics, ain’t you listenin’? Literally tellin’ you how she feels -“

“Mellie, what are you sayin’?” Clyde sat a little straighter, tossing the hat that had been half-hiding his face into the back seat as he concentrated on his sister and her words.

“Clyde, are you seriously tellin’ me...? C’mon, that girl’s crazy about you, it’s obvious to everyone. You _told_ her you feel the same, right? Didn’t you?”

Clyde swallowed hard, head spinning. Hadn’t he? He’d meant to, he’d just wanted to wait for the right time, but now his head was spinning and his throat was dry. Had he really let her go without telling her honestly how he felt?

As if reading his mind, Mellie checked her mirrors then swung the car across two lanes of traffic to flip into the opposite direction. Even amidst his panic Clyde had the sense to grab the dashboard, steadying himself while his sister swung the car across the road. “Mellie are you tryin’ to kill us both?! What are you even doing?”

“If y’don’t tell her, _right now_ , you’ll regret it. We’re goin’ back.”

“S’too late Mel, she’s already gone through security an’ I can’t get in there -“

Mellie pushed down hard on the accelerator, ignoring the hooting of the car she overtook as she raced to the airport again. “It’ll only be too late if you miss her plane. C’mon, get your head in the game Clyde, how can we get you through security? What’s the plan?”

——————

The plan ended up being “buying a ticket and running through the airport”, Clyde thankful for his height as he raced through the security line and scanned the departure lounge for you. Your gate hadn’t been called so he knew you had be here somewhere, but there were too many people and he was drawing a blank... until he spotted a familiar hoodie swallowing you up as you hunched into one of the tiny plastic seats that lined the walls of the lounge. It was all he could do not to knock down every person who stood between him and you as he strode purposefully across the lounge floor, slowing only once you glanced upwards and he caught your eye. You pulled off the headphones that had been stuck over your ears since you’d passed through security, music blaring from them even above the noise of the crowd around you.

“What are you doing? How did you get through?!” 

“Bought a ticket.”

“A ticket? To Burlington?”

“Nope, just to DC. M’not goin’ anywhere though, it was just the cheapest ticket I could buy that’d get me through here to you.”

“I don’t understand -“

He pulled you tight against him, kissing your temple, his plastercast arm digging nicely into the small of your back as he held you. “There was somethin’ I forgot, earlier, an’ I couldn’t let you leave without fixin’ it. Baby, I love you. I am in love with you. Have been for a long time now -“

“‘Longer than you’d think?’ We’ve said that before...” You were crying again, happily this time, kissing his jaw and cheek as he spoke.

“Longer than that, even. I couldn’t let you leave without tellin’ you. M’sorry I took so long to get it out in words, but I think I’ve been tellin’ you everyday since I got outta the hospital one way or another...“

You choked back something between a laugh and a sob, understanding exactly what he meant. He’d been telling you with every single kiss, every touch, everything unsaid for as long as you could remember. “Clyde no, it’s perfect. You’re fucking perfect. I love you too, more than I can say, and I am coming back, I promise...”

“I know, I know. We can make this work. Besides, we got a degree to finish and all your work is at your place.”

You smiled in acknowledgement; to be honest, you’d almost forgotten about the dissertation, so consumed as you’d been with Clyde’s assault and recovery, not to mention Christmas and the lazy, perfect days that had followed. “Deadline’s nearly here, it’d be a shame to screw it up at this late stage.”

Clyde wiped your damp cheeks with his sleeve before losing his hand in your hair, scratching softly against your scalp. “We’re not screwing anythin’ up. Few more weeks work, an’ it’s all done. We’re gonna be focused and dedicated students -“

You pressed yourself against him, your mouth close to his ear. “...And for every perfect page you write, I’m gonna send you the filthiest, hottest pictures you’ve ever seen.”

If he hadn’t been concentrating entirely on you he may have missed the meaning behind what you’d said, so quiet and deadpan in its delivery. He licked his lips. “That a promise, baby?”

“It’s a certainty.” 

He was blushing, his neck, cheeks and tips of his ears blooming blood red just the way you liked. “That’s uh, that’s some motivation.”

“I’ll expect the same in return...” Your eyes were bright, sparked with excitement.

“Seems fair. Might need a couple of test runs first, jus’ to make sure we’re both working on the same lines...” He pressed his lips to your neck, mouthing at the skin there as you squirmed in his arms.

“Practice makes perfect. Tonight?” You ignored your gate announcement playing over the speakers above.

“Fuck yes, tonight. Now go get your plane.” He kissed you soundly, pouring all the love he’d just declared into it until the two of you were gasping for air and smiling against each other’s mouths.

“I love you. I’ll see you soon. Talk to you tonight.” 

“Love you too. Fly safe. Come back.”

And with one last lingering kiss, you followed the almost-missed call to your departure gate, you mood lighter and heart full.


	15. Chapter 15

Returning to your apartment you found everything to be exactly as you had left it, but your whole life had changed. Your world had stretched wider, taking in a whole new state along with the small bubble you’d been existing in while living in Vermont. You spent the first couple of days back in Burlington catching up with chores, airing out the stale-aired apartment and tidying up the debris you’d left behind when Mellie’s sudden call had sent you racing south. As promised, you’d called Clyde as soon as you emerged from the airport and kept talking intermittently for most of the next two days, stopping only to run errands, finish chores or sleep. During your calls you spent a decent chunk of time working on your shared dissertation, passing updates back and forth and watching as the colours changed on the Google doc that held all your work, drafts and notes. Just as before, Clyde was diligent and smart – how he’d managed to pull together the bulk of the final chapter you weren’t sure, but on the afternoon of New Year’s Eve you found yourself back at your desk, adding comments and notes and moving paragraphs around as you blended his work with your own. You were so close to being finished and submitting the full document for review; if you were honest with yourself, you’d never expected to complete one course, never mind a full degree, and you certainly hadn’t expected to meet someone quite as special as Clyde along the way. Keeping busy kept the pangs of longing at bay – they never vanished, but you were able to manage them with regular phone calls, messages and the occasional dirty picture.

Neither of you revisited the awkwardness of your first phone sex experience; your relationship had bloomed way beyond the stages of self-doubt or confusion. You wanted him, he wanted you, and you both knew it deep into your bones. On your first night back in your apartment you’d spent almost two hours tormenting Clyde with lingerie-clad images, breathy sighs and strangled moans. The following night he returned the favour, sending pictures of himself that had you questioning just how he’d managed to contort his arm and body into the positions displayed. From his messages and photos, you quickly discovered that not only was Clyde a devoted and loving long-distance boyfriend, he was also a kinky little shit. You loved it and couldn’t wait to explore that avenue a lot further the next time you were together. 

Since he’d admitted his love for you Clyde had no hesitation in repeating it over and over as he spilled over himself, words, gasps and noises that you quickly came to crave. You grew braver with the pictures you sent him, and a couple of weeks into the new year you ditched static images completely in favour of lamp-lit FaceTime sessions where you showed him exactly how much you missed him, and what you wished he was there doing to you instead of you doing to yourself.

On a damp, grey day in the last week of January your phone buzzed to life in your pocket as you walked home from work, dodging the puddles of half-melted snow that dotted the pavement between the school and your street. You checked the caller ID and answered, tucking yourself into a semi-sheltered shop doorway. 

“Hey Mellie, how’s it going?”

“Hey, guess what?”

“What?”

“They got ‘em! Last night, in Parkersburg!”

While you had no idea where Parkersburg was, you knew exactly who Mellie was talking about. “Holy shit! It’s definitely the same guys?”

“Yup. Two guys were caught in another bar outside the city trying the same thing again. Luckily this bar had much better CCTV and an alarm linked straight to 911 – cops got there in minutes and caught the guys with their bats still in their hands. Detective Donohoe said that they’ll check for forensics, but she expects Clyde’s DNA to be on the bats at the very least.” 

Your stomach dropped at the thought – you hated being reminded of just how brutal Clyde’s attackers had been, how close they’d been to taking him from you. You knew that if anyone understood how you felt, it was Mellie.

“The stupid wee bastards… what happens now? Will Clyde have to testify?”

You heard Mellie muttering to someone in the background before she answered. “Sorry, Joe’s eavesdroppin’. We’re not sure yet about court or whatever, depends on what the guys admit to.”

“How’s Clyde taking it?”

“Quiet, you know him. He won’t talk about the assault much, an’ I know he’s nervous about re-openin’… listen, don’t tell him I told you this, but I caught him looking online at a realtor’s site the other day…”

“D’you think he’s looking for somewhere new to live?” Your heart jumped at the thought – you knew if he did ever plan on leaving Boone County, there would only be one place he’d want to go.

“No, I think he’s thinking of sellin’ the bar. I know he’s feeling scared, but he’ll regret it if he does; that place healed him after Iraq, kept him out there an’ bein’ social even when he wanted to hide away in my place ‘cos of his hand. We can’t let him hide away again.”

You took a few moments to respond, half-listening as Mellie muttered something else to Joe. It was true, Clyde hadn’t said much to you about going back to work and you hadn’t pushed the matter with him, but you hadn’t realised how anxious he must have been feeling if he really was considering selling the bar. You knew he’d been struggling with the aftermath of the assault; the night before you left Boone County, you’d spent hours with him clinging to you, weeping against your stomach as he described the effects of the PTSD he’d developed after Iraq and how scared he was of it happening again. You’d noticed him “phasing out” as Mellie called it, his attention drifting miles away from time to time, and while he’d described the nightmares that had plagued him for months after he was discharged from the forces you hadn’t noticed any bad dreams disturbing his sleep while you’d been with him. Now though he was alone at night, something you knew he hated, and you grew concerned that perhaps he wasn’t telling you the full story of how he was feeling.

“I’ll talk to him, Mellie. He hasn’t said anything about selling up to me, but I’ll try to dig a bit, see how he’s feeling about it all. Has he thought about counselling?”

“He used to talk to a guy at the VA after he came home, maybe that would help, talking to someone he sorta knows again?”

Mellie’s voice choked, and you heard shuffling from the room. “Sorry, just kickin’ Joe outta here… listen, there’s something I gotta say, but please don’t take it badly…”

“What is it, Mel?”

“It’s just… he’s miserable, mopin’ around here like a lost soul. He says he understands why you couldn’t stay, an’ he says he accepts it, but it’s a lie. I know you’ve been talkin’ together again just as much as before, an’ he’s fine most of the time, but I can tell when Clyde’s not himself and sweetie, he ain’t himself…”

You kicked back against the shop door behind you, ignoring the disgruntled look of the shop assistant who glared at you from within the store as you hid in the doorway avoiding another wintry shower. “Shit… I’m not exactly having a party up here either, Mel. I miss him so fucking much, but it’s so early, I can’t just quit my life here and, what, move down there? Move in with him, with no job, nothing? I did it before, I left home and everything I knew behind for a boy and when it all went wrong, I had nothing – “

“Clyde’s not a boy, and he’s not your ex-husband. We’re not that family. We love you.”

You swallowed hard, exasperated and annoyed that Mellie was putting a voice to the very same thoughts you’d been chastising yourself with since you’d got on the plane in Charleston and left Clyde behind. “Please Mellie, I don’t want to argue… I love you all too, you know that don’t you? I just can’t –“

You heard her breathe out shakily and hum in acknowledgment. “I know, I do. M’sorry for pushin’ it, I’m just worried about Clyde.”

You sniffed, blaming it on the cold air and not your emotions. “Me too, Mel. Listen, I’ll talk to him later tonight and try to figure out what’s going on in his head. Maybe you and Jimmy could try to get him back in the bar, even just in the daytime to check it all over. Now the bastards have been arrested maybe that’ll take a bit of the pressure off?”

“Mmm, hope so. We’ll try, an’ if anything comes up I’ll let you know. M’sorry, again.”

“It’s okay Mel, you didn’t say anything I haven’t already said to myself. I’ll talk to you soon.”

“Bye.”

You hung up and slid your phone back into your pocket, pulled your hat further down over your ears and walked briskly back to your apartment, almost running to escape the freezing rain and the lingering echoes of Mellie’s call. 

When Clyde FaceTimed you later that night you couldn’t help but ask about Duck Tape. He’d moved back into his trailer a couple of weeks before but had always dodged discussing a return to work, saying he was waiting until the doctor’s said he could lift things again, or that Earl was keeping an eye on the place while he healed.

“When are you re-opening, Clyde?”

He frowned and sucked his bottom lip between his teeth before he answered. “End of the month, maybe…”

“Maybe?”

“Maybe… maybe I don’t want to re-open? Maybe I’ll jus’ leave it a while longer, maybe I’ll travel, maybe I’ll get a job somewhere else, maybe I’ll take my Speedway cash an’ –“ He stopped himself from going any further.

“’Speedway cash’? What’s that?”

“S’nothin’. Forget I said anythin’…”

You sat in silence for a few moments, listening to his agitated breathing and trying not to feel hurt that he wouldn’t make eye contact (or as close to eye contact as you could get on a video call) with you. When his brow un-creased and he stopped chewing his lip, you spoke again.

“Clyde, listen…”

“No, I know what you’re gonna say. You’re gonna tell me to get back on the horse, re-open, I’ll feel better when I do. But m’scared, baby. Those guys came into my bar, an’ they spoiled it…

It was okay when you, and Mellie, and Jimmy and Sylvia and little Sadie were there on Christmas Eve ‘cos I could ignore it, but when I’m there on my own… it’s like I forget how to breathe, all I hear is my heart thumpin’ an’ blood ringing in my ears an’ it’s like I can feel their hands and bats on me again. I don’t know how to get over it.”

You could feel your heart breaking for him – you wanted to scoop him up and whisper comforting, loving words in his ear until all his fears vanished, but equally you knew he’d hate your pity or concern. He needed you to help him find a way through this. “Okay… so how are we going to fix this?”

“Whaddya mean, ‘we’?”

“Oh Clyde, you didn’t think you were alone in this, did you? What bothers you bothers me. What are our options here?”

He was taken aback, you could tell from the way his mouth hung open as your words and his thoughts caught up with him. Slowly, as minutes turned into hours, you ran through a list of possibilities:

1\. Selling the bar. Not an option, just something he’d half-considered when the anxiety got too much.  
2\. Hiring someone to work with him. Possibly Earl?  
3\. Speaking to the therapist at the VA. Maybe. (Clyde didn’t seem enthusiastic, but he promised to call the office at least).  
4\. Looking into a new security system – definitely. The one he’d had was good enough to capture some grainy CCTV, but Clyde wanted better. He’d contact a local company on Monday to see what was on offer.

Tentatively, he agreed to your suggestion that he pick a date to reopen, settling on the last Friday in February – far enough ahead to give him time to prepare, but near enough to feel solid and real. Before that date, the two of you had another milestone to celebrate – submitting your dissertation and completing your studies. You’d given yourselves the final week before the deadline to read and re-read the whole thing, ironing out any last details before you each uploaded the document and began the long wait until results came out April. You were already more than happy with your work, but you knew that Clyde wanted to read through it one last time – you were starting to think it might be a good distraction for him while he arranged Duck Tape’s reopening. 

“Hey, baby, thank you for listenin’ to all this, it helps a lot.”

“You have nothing to thank me for. I just want you to be happy and feel safe.”

“You help with both.”

God, he was adorable. You told him as much, then pointed out the late hour. “I’m gonna go to sleep now. You should too. Talk tomorrow?”

“Yep, and the next day, an’ the one after that too. N’night.”

You sloppily pressed your lips to the camera on the front of your phone, hit the big red button and dimmed your lamp. From tomorrow, you decided your sole focus was to make sure Clyde felt happy and safe and loved. It might take a bit of planning, but you had an idea how to start.


	16. Chapter 16

The next few weeks were as hectic for Clyde as they were for you, as he juggled his last few remaining doctor’s appointments along with getting the bar security upgrade installed and, finally, started a schedule of regular meetings with George, his old counsellor from the VA in Charleston. They’d caught up by accident in the lobby of the vet centre when Clyde had been in to see about getting some adjustments made to his prosthetic, making small talk in an office doorway until George had realised that Clyde was _lingering_ , and he’d asked if Clyde wanted to get a coffee. That coffee turned into three, and then a regular “coffee date” was set up where Clyde could talk through all the noise and anxiety that had stalked through his mind since the assault, and George would listen and offer words of advice and guidance. 

Despite his initial reservations Clyde was quick to open up to George, having been through the counselling program after Iraq, and he soon rediscovered the relief having someone impartial to talk his feelings through with. Talking to George was easy because there were no emotions involved, no sense of being a burden or that by admitting to his anxiety and negative thoughts he was letting someone he loved down – George was impartial, he listened without judgement or a need to “fix” Clyde. He offered advice where he had some, and pointers to other sources of support if needed. Clyde appreciated it, and him, hugely.

You’d been right about the new security system; he _did_ feel better knowing it had all the bells and whistles that a top-of-the-line security system could ever need. He easily memorised the alarm and camera codes and watched with interest as the engineer wired up the system to his computer as well as setting up remote access so he could check the bar day or night anywhere in the world. A couple of panic buttons were hidden around the bar area, and an extra one in the office, “just in case”. Clyde hoped that he’d never need to use them but was happier knowing they were there. 

When he tried to talk to Earl about coming on board the Duck Tape team in an official capacity, Earl wouldn’t hear of it at all. “I’m more’n happy to help out any night of the week, but m’not takin’ yer money, Clyde.”

“Earl, if you’re workin’ here I gotta pay, s’kinda the law.”

He just shook his head and folded his arms across his wide chest. “Lemme have a couple of drinks on the house from time to time. Or if I come in with Lettie-May from the Grocery World in town, show the two of us a good night. Deal?”

So that was that. 

The overlong, grey January bled into a shorter and brighter February, and with it came the bar’s reopening. Clyde had insisted on keeping it low-key but by seven o’clock the bar was packed busier than he’d seen in months, full of locals, well-wishers and some unfamiliar faces from outside the county. Mellie and Joe had appeared early on looking extremely cosy, followed a little later by Jimmy and Sylvia who had come over from Lynchburg for the weekend to work on wedding planning with Sylvia’s mother. Clyde couldn’t tell what spooked Jimmy more – the thought of wedding planning with Sylvia’s family, or the sight of Mellie curled up cosy at the end of the bar with Joe Bang. 

“Do I gotta have words with that man, Clyde?” Jimmy wasn’t looking at his brother as he spoke, his eyes narrowed on the peroxide fuzz of Joe Bang’s head.

Clyde kept his voice as casually neutral as possible. “I’d say not, Jim. Mellie’ll skin you if you try.”

“But Cly – “ Jimmy jabbed a finger towards the white-blonde, hulking man, whose thick arm was draped possessively over his little sister's shoulder.

“No, Jimmy. I think she’s happy. Leave ‘em be.”

Jimmy settled for glaring threateningly in Joe’s general direction whenever Mellie wasn’t looking, Clyde running interference to make sure Joe and Jimmy’s paths didn’t cross. They were both well on their way to being “well oiled”, having both worked their way through a number of beers, and he’d only just got the bar fixed up – if Jimmy and Joe went at it, he’d need to get the repair guys back in. His reward was both Mellie and Sylvia thanking him profusely for defusing a potential “sweet potato situation” (Mellie’s code for when teenage Jimmy would go “full-alpha-male-older-brother-numbskull” on any boy he suspected of sniffing around her), and as he and Earl closed the bar and locked up for the night he realised he’d _enjoyed_ being back. He sauntered back to his trailer with a spring in his step, the full moon and the stars above him lighting his way home.

Just as he finished up in the bathroom and was getting ready to head to bed, he heard his phone ringing from his bedside table. He raced through the narrow trailer from the bathroom to his bedroom, threw himself across the bed and answered it just in time, trying to catch his breath as his broad body bounced on the bed.

“He- hello?”

“Clyde? What’s happened, are you okay?”

“M’fine baby, just raced for the phone, didn’t wanna miss your call. Why are you still up?”

He heard you hum as you stretched, picturing you laid out in your bed just the way he was in his. "It’s Friday night, I can sleep in all day tomorrow If I want, and I wanted to speak to that handsome boyfriend of mine before I go to sleep…”

Clyde grinned against his phone, pulling the covers a little higher around himself as he settled into his bed. “Oh yeah? Shame he can’t come to phone right now, so you’ll have to stick with me instead.”

Your soft laugh poured down the phone like honey, sending shivers right through him. “Behave, you, you know I think you’re perfect. How was tonight?”

He took his time telling you all about his first night back behind the bar, how busy it had been with all the locals and non-locals alike. He told you all about Jimmy and Joe’s almost-stand-off and how he’d managed to manipulate the two of them into avoiding each other, and how happy Mellie and Sylvia had been about it. He told you just how much he loved you, how much he’d been missing you, and _exactly_ what he’d do to you, _with you_ , if you weren’t eight hundred miles away. Although his default setting was stoic and shy, he loved when he found the courage to be vocal and descriptive like this, the detail he went into leaving nothing to the imagination. The only thing he loved more was how eagerly you responded, and how quickly you switched the call from voice to video so you could watch each other get yourselves off. He held back until the last waves of orgasm flickered through your body, your eyes lidded and sultry as he picked up the pace on himself, his phone propped between his thighs as he jerked himself hard for you. 

As he moved, he told you just how good he felt, how good you always made him feel whether you were with him or not, how he longed for you, how he woke each morning hot and hard and aching for your touch. His brain near exploded when you told him how you couldn’t sleep without thinking of him, remembering his hand on you, how his fingers had stretched you so well making you ready for his cock, the way his skin tasted under your tongue, all the things you wanted to do when you came back to him. He couldn’t wait; now he was fully healed he could do so much more than just lay out on the bed while you rode him, and he intended on showing you all the many ways he wanted to love you, repeatedly, _constantly_. Your suggestion of him tying you down tight against his bed and taking you hard and fast pushed him over the edge, his vision whiting-out as his camera caught the thick streaks of cum that flew over his stomach and chest, the microphone catching your name as he gasped it from his lips.

A little later he was curled on his side, cleaned up and cosy in bed, his phone propped up on the empty pillow beside him. You were lying on your side too, your phone in the same position on your bed so you could face each other despite the distance between you. Clyde’s voice was rough and low with longing after long silent moments spent as the two of you stared at each other through your screens, drinking each other in. 

“Come visit, baby.”

“I can’t, I’m stuck in school until April…”

“I’ll come up to you then.”

“You can’t Clyde, you just reopened…”

“But I miss you. I need you.”

“I need you too. Don’t panic, okay? We’ll work something out. Did you get your gifts?”

Clyde looked over to the pile of brand-new books that had arrived on his doorstep that morning. You’d been sending him mail a couple of times a week, just little things you knew would cheer him up; sometimes cute postcards, sometimes bags of candy, but today’s gift had been new books he could lose himself in for hours. “Mmhmm, I love ‘em. Thank you, darlin’.”

“You’re welcome. Now we don’t have to study you can get that fiction habit back on track.”

He grinned wickedly. “I’d rather get yo – “

“Settle down, cowboy. You can take me down that track tomorrow night.”

“Damn right I will. Sleep tight, baby. Love you.”

“Love you too, handsome.”

Just as you were about to fall asleep, your phone flashed to life again. A selfie from Clyde, showing the first book he’d chosen from the selection you'd sent him half covering his face, his skin glowing warm in the orange lamp light, one brown eye visible and fixed on the camera lens. Just as you'd hoped, he was going to read until he fell asleep, banishing the insomnia and bad dreams that threatened him each night far away. Knowing he'd been struggling to sleep at night _hurt_ , and you knew his love of reading would help, even just to distract him from sitting in the dark alone for hours. You sent the photo to print, promising to frame it in the morning after your appointment. You hoped it would bring you luck.

\------------

_“…and would you be able to come in and see us, say… Wednesday, April sixteen, at eleven o’clock?”_

You flicked through your calendar and clicked into the 16th of April, typing in the appointment with one hand as you cradled your phone with the other.

“That’s perfect, I’ll be there.”

_“Great, we’ll email you the confirmation in a little while. Thank you so much for giving us your time today – we don’t normally do this on weekends, but this week’s been so busy... It’s been really exciting talking to you this morning, I’m looking forward to seeing you in person!”_

You said your goodbyes, hung up, and finished adding the details into your calendar, squealing internally as you worked out the logistics of this little operation. Blowing a kiss to the new photo of Clyde that sat beside your computer, you started working on the next stage of your plan, determined that this time everything was going to work out.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes you have to go back before you can go forward.

Your chat with Mellie on that chilly January afternoon had lingered in your mind far longer than you cared to admit. You’d been caught between concern for Clyde’s mental state and making plans to help him as much as possible, and shame, knowing that she was right about everything. 

You had kept fighting against the ache inside you to move south to be with Clyde because you were scared, _terrified_ that maybe soon the scales would fall from his eyes, that one day he’d wake up and _not want you_ , just like Riley had done. So you built up your walls, shoring up your defences to stop the nagging sensation that _you shouldn’t be here, you should be there_ from gaining any traction in your mind or heart.

To say it was difficult was the understatement of the year. Your drifted through your days knowing that something was off, not right, and no matter how hard you tried you couldn’t shift the feeling at all. You joined an early morning yoga class at work, you started meeting with a couple of colleagues to power-walk through the slush-covered streets in the evening, you tried teaching yourself to knit, but no amount of distraction could tear Mellie’s words from your mind. 

_He’s miserable..._  
_He ain’t himself..._  
_We love you._  
**We love you.**

Family love was something you’d grown used to living without. Even as a teenager your relationship with your parents had been strained at best, downright explosive most of the time. Riley hadn’t just been your ticket to America, he’d been your ticket _away from them_. You’d projected your dreams of a husband, two kids, dog, _a real loving family_ onto him, and it had only been when he’d shoved his grubby envelope of cash into your hands and told you to go that the dream had shattered once and for all. You’d tried calling your parents to explain what had happened but they weren’t interested in the truth, certain only that you’d disappointed them yet again and that you had to get on a plane home immediately, your tail between your legs, and pray that they’d find space to forgive you.

_Fuck. That._

So you’d hardened your heart, jumped on buses and trains for days and weeks until your past was left scattered in the dust behind you and you found yourself on the other side of the enormous country you now called home. 

It had been hard adjusting to life alone, but you’d coped. You found a bed and breakfast to base yourself in while you hunted through ads for the tiny apartment you still lived in, at the same time sitting the tests required to work as a teacher’s aide in the nearest elementary school in Burlington. It wasn’t especially well-paid, and the senior teaching staff mostly pissed you off, but the kids were adorable and they took to you quickly. 

Working with the kids in class soothed the urge you kept buried deep, deep, deep down to _nurture and raise and protect_ \- that was a whole other train of thought you were determined to avoid for as long as possible. Still, the kids kept you busy and mostly able to keep the pangs of loneliness that tormented you when you were away from work at bay. 

Maybe that’s why you’d signed up for the online degree - you’d been lonely, and wanted more from life. Lonely enough to fall for the first person who paid you attention? No. You weren’t clinging to the first person to show you any interest; you’d indulged in dates, one-nighters, and a couple of ill-advised, short-lived flings since arriving in Vermont but none of them had captured you the way your soft Southern barman had. Clyde was special, and you loved him in ways you’d never thought possible. 

It was this realisation that pushed you towards the edge of your comfort zone, to at least consider what you’d thought impossible. What happened at work sent you flying over it.

You’d been working at the school for years, but aside from the usual workplace banter and occasional nights out you hadn’t formed any deeper relationships with your colleagues. The senior teachers annoyed the shit out of you, looking down their noses while you did their photocopying and stuck their pupils’ work on bare classroom walls. The teacher you worked closest with, Claudia Monroe, taught twenty-five six-year-olds, your favourite class, and you found yourself looking forward to the days where you’d be directed to her classroom more and more. She’d always kept to herself, sharing little about her life spent outside the school’s thick walls, a trait you shared and appreciated in others. 

That was until ten days after your chat with Mellie, her words still heavy on your mind. You’d been in the playground with Claudia, watching as her pupils chased each other around the slippy grey yard with ribbons and balls, both of you cradling mugs of hot coffee and stamping your feet on the spot to stay warm. 

“What’s up with you lately?” You didn’t normally talk much at break time, so this was new.

“What do you mean?”

She narrowed her eyes and waved her hand at you. “You’re more... smiley. Happier. What’s changed?”

You felt your blush rise to your cheeks and prayed she’d think it was the coffee that had caused it. No such luck.

“Oh. _Oh._ Santa brought you more than a hangover this year, huh?” She bent down to wipe the runny nose of a tiny boy who’d appeared at her feet, then sent him off and stepped closer to you conspiratorially. “So, what’s he like. Or she. Whoever’s making you smile.”

You stumbled over your words, not knowing quite where to start. “He... I mean, Clyde, he’s really nice.”

“‘Nice’?! Come on, pudding is nice. Coffee is nice. You’re glowing - he has to be more than ‘nice’. Tell me about him, remind me what it’s like.”

“What what’s like?”

“ _New love_ , dummy.”

So you told her all about Clyde and everything that had happened, intending to stop once you go to the part where you left him behind in West Virginia. Maybe it was the cold weather, maybe the hot coffee, maybe the shrieking kids swarming around your knees, but you just kept talking. You opened up about home, Riley, his family and what had happened and how you’d left Oklahoma behind. You told her about how you loved Mellie and Jimmy as soon as you’d met in that bland hospital room in Charleston and about how much you missed them all, but especially Clyde. You told her how they wanted you there permanently, but how you knew it was too much of a risk, how you worried that everything would fall apart, how you thought it was better to be sensible and safe. When you were finally able to stop your gums from flapping with words Claudia was just _staring_ at you, her mouth slightly agape, the cold Vermont wind whipping her red hair around her face.

“And you’re here _why_?”

“I don’t - what do you mean?”

“What do I - ...listen, life is short. Why are you wasting your time worrying about ‘what if’ when ‘what is’ is right there waiting for you?”

“I - I live here, I work here, I can’t just -“

She held up one finger, hushing you just like she’d hush a rambling kid in class. “Listen, let me tell you a story. I lost my girlfriend three years ago - long story, cancer, everything was awful, I’m sure you can imagine. Don’t imagine, it’s agony. Anyway, neither of us were out-out when we first met, we were little more than kids pretty much, and we spent so fucking -“

“Miss Monroe!” One of the kids nearby stopped racing across the yard and gasped, scandalised at hearing his teacher curse out loud. 

Claudia winced and lowered her voice again, stepping a little closer to you. “We spent so long wasting time, terrified to be honest with each other and our families. We’d been friends since the end of high school, painfully straight-acting, had boyfriends we each hated, the whole deal... By the time we finally got it together it was no surprise to anyone and we were blissfully happy, but we could have been happy together for longer. We had ten perfect years before she got sick, but we deserved more. Life is too damn short to be scared when you could be happy. Think about it.”

With that, the bell signalling the end of break echoed around the walled yard and you gathered the kids back inside the building, Claudia’s story mingling in your mind with Mellie’s call.

It took a couple more days of internal dilemma, but you caught yourself searching for teacher’s aide jobs in West Virginia. Just idle curiosity, nothing _serious_... that was until you saw a job advertised in Danville Elementary School, Boone County. Before your brain had time to talk you out of it you were completing the application form and emailing all your certificates and details to the school. If it was meant to be, it’d be.

They called you for the phone interview the morning after Clyde had reopened Duck Tape, and just a matter of weeks later, on April 16th, you left your face to face interview held at Danville Elementary knowing they wanted you to start working with them when school started for the new year in August. They _loved_ you, your experience, your work ethic, and wanted you to work with the youngest class. They even had a scheme to help new employees to relocate, giving you brochures and numbers to call to arrange apartment viewings whenever you could. You could be with Clyde, but not dependent on him. You could live your lives alongside each other, with each other, as close or as separate as you wanted. You left the school grounds and leaned against the gate, taking deep lungfulls of the West Virginian air, so warm and sweet you could almost taste the promise of summer on it. It carried the taste of excitement, possibility, and love in every breath. It was all yours. 

You hadn’t told Clyde anything about your plans, or that you were back in West Virginia, but now knowing he was just minutes away from where you stood made the hair on your arms stand up. With one call you could be kissing him again within minutes, all you needed was a cab to take you from the school to his trailer. It was too tempting, but also too important to rush. 

Instead of calling a cab, you called Mellie, knowing she took Wednesday’s off. 

“Wait, what, you’re in _Danville_? That’s like... two miles from us. You could walk to my place right now!”

So you did.

Mellie spotted you from the porch and raced to meet you when you turned onto her street, pulling you into an excited, tight hug. She jumped up and down and squealed with joy as Joe Bang emerged from the house behind her, raising an arm to you in a confused greeting.

“Clyde is going to _explode_! I can’t believe you’re here an’ he doesn’t know. Want me to call him? He’ll jus’ be at home, won’t be workin’ until later, he could be here in five minutes...”

You grabbed a hold of the woman, forcing her excited attention back on you. “No don’t call him! Not yet - I want to surprise him. Will he open Duck Tape tonight?”

Mellie led you back to the house, shooing a curious Joe away but leaving him with a fond kiss. “Yep - Wednesday’s are quiet but he and Earl will be there little after dinner. What are y’thinkin’?”

You collapsed onto the couch with a sigh, exhausted as the excitement of everything caught up with you. “In the last twenty-odd hours I’ve been on a plane, a bus, then a motel -“

You ignored Mellie’s grumble at the mention of the motel.

“- then up early, then had an interview for the job of my dreams. I need a nap, a shower, and then... could you make me look pretty? So I look my best when we go see Clyde at the bar.”

Mellie’s eyes shone, her full lips curling into a thrilled grin. “Oh sweetie, when I’m finished with you Clyde will spontaneously combust. Let’s do it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 100 kudos??! Oh you lovely bunch, thank you so much. I'm having such fun writing this, almost don't want it to end (even though all good things must). Still got a little more to go, though.


	18. Chapter 18

Once you’d napped, showered, eaten as much as the butterflies in your stomach would allow and picked your outfit for the night (a dark floral shirt dress, pale sheer tights and cute ankle boots you thanked past-you for deciding to pack), Mellie set to work taming your stress-flushed skin and tangled hair.  She couldn’t help the wide smile that shone across her face as she worked, muttering as much to herself as to you about how excited she was, how she couldn’t wait to see Clyde’s reaction when you walked into the bar, how she couldn’t wait to hear about his reaction when you told him you’d got a job in Danville.  Hearing her say it out loud made it feel even more real, and you couldn’t help but mirror her excitement.  
   
“It’s not too much, is it?”  You gestured to yourself as you stood facing the tall mirror that hung in the hall a little later, your bag over your shoulder as Mellie searched for her car keys. Mellie had smoothed and lightly curled your hair, setting it with spray that made it shine. Your make-up was fresh and subtle, just enough to smooth your skin tone and brighten your eyes. Your dress clung and flowed around your body just right, casual enough for day-wear but perfect for an evening in the local bar too.  
   
“Sweetie, stop worrying.  You look fine – better than fine, y’look damn good.  Dressed up but not overdressed, sexy but not slutty.  Seriously, y’could walk in there tonight wearing Joe’s nasty work overalls an’ Clyde’d lose the ability to speak.”  
   
On cue, Joe’s bright white head peeked out from the kitchen where he’d spent the day working on the contents of huge pots and pans bubbling full of _something_ on the stove - you didn’t dare ask what he was up to.  “Nothin’ wrong with my overalls, Mellie, ain’t never heard you complainin’ – “  
   
Mellie held her hand up at the man behind her, glaring over her shoulder.  “Okay Joe, thank you for your input, much appreciated, I’ll see you later.”  With that, she herded you out of the front door and into the car, leaving Joe laughing to himself in the kitchen.

——————

“Why am I so nervous, Mel?” You smoothed your dress down over your trembling knees as Mellie’s car flew along the quiet road between her house and Clyde’s bar.

“You ain’t nervous. You’re excited. There’s a difference.”

“I think I’m both.”

Almost imperceptibly, she tightened her grip on the steering wheel. “Are you worried about Clyde, how he’ll react? I’ll tell you somethin’, nothin’s changed for him since the day you left in December. He’s crazy for you, has been since even before he laid proper eyes on you. You don’t need t’be worryin’ none about how he’ll react.”

She swung the car quickly to the left, and Duck Tape’s neon lights appeared. 

“Oh jesus, we’re here. That was quick. God, do I look okay? I didn’t smudge my eyes did I? Is my hair -?”

Mellie shushed you, her index finger pressed firm on your rambling mouth. You recognised the look in her eye - it was the same one she flashed Jimmy and Clyde when they annoyed her. “Hush. Wait here for two minutes while I make sure he’s inside. Count to... two hundred, then come in, okay?”

You nodded dumbly against her finger, which she retracted and wiped on a tissue. With a final instruction to “chill the hell out”, she slipped from the driver’s seat and headed into the bar, the car park flaring with music as the door to the bar opened and closed behind her. 

You checked your face for the fifteenth time in the rear view mirror, wiping imagined stray gloss from your teeth as you counted in your head. You got to eighty and checked your eyelashes for clumps; finding none, you continued to count to one hundred and thirty and spritzed a little extra perfume on your wrist. You got to one hundred and seventy and couldn’t take any more, so jumped from the car and almost sprinted to the door of the bar.

Pulling the door open an inch, you caught the words of the song playing inside.

_”Some things I'd change but it's too late,_  
_I'd take the past and make it straight._  
_Even though it's complicated,_  
_We've got time to start again,_  
_I don't know if you can hear me.”_

It was from your playlist, the one you’d added to Clyde’s iPod at Christmas, packed full of songs that said all the things you’d been too scared to vocalise at the time. Despite the excitement and nerves that had pestered you all afternoon and evening, you couldn’t imagine going back to that anxious, “what if I say too much?” state with Clyde. To him, you were an open book now, and you knew there was nothing to fear. Checking your hair in the reflection in the nearest pane of glass one final time, you took a deep breath and stepped into Duck Tape.

He had his back to you as you approached the bar, refilling the optics while the place was quiet just before opening for the evening. You ignored the way Mellie not-so-subtly nudged Earl and dragged him into the kitchen, no doubt leaving the building through the back door. Still focused on the bottles on the wall, Clyde didn’t notice you perch on one of the high stools at the bar behind him, not even when you coughed lightly to try to draw his attention.

“Jus’ a second, nearly finished swappin’ this bottle...”

“Can I give you a hand?”

Hearing your voice, he froze on the spot, then carefully set the full bottle of vodka down on the counter below the rack of optics he’d been working on. He turned on his heel slowly to face you, then stepped close until his body was pressed against the wooden bar, both hands,metal and flesh, flat on the counter top. 

“Miss, some might take offence to a remark like that...” His voice was low and steady as he loomed over the bar before you, only the joy and excitement that radiated from his eyes betraying his firm demeanour.

You grinned broadly up at him, placing your right hand over his, stroking your fingers over the horseshoe ring he wore. “Some might. You won’t.”

He was around the bar in a flash, quicker than you’d thought a man of his size could move, scooping you up and off the barstool and pulling you tight against his body, both hands splayed wide across your back as he held you against him. He buried his face into your shoulder and neck as though breathing you in, and you clung to him, your fingers laced at the back of his neck, pressing a chaste kiss against his head as he held you tighter still. From the corner of your eye you saw the neon Coors light in the far window switch off, and knew that somehow Mellie and Earl were closing the place as much as they could for you, giving the two of you the peace you’d been craving for almost four months. 

“How’d you do it, how’d you always know when m’gonna need you the most?” 

“Luck, maybe?”

“How did you know?”

“Know what, Clyde?”

He kept a tight grip of you as he lifted his face from the hollow of your neck, his eyes damp. “About the letter I got today. Y’really don’t know?”

You leaned back enough to focus on him clearly, brushing his hair back behind his ears as he spoke. “No, I’m sorry, I don’t know about a letter... I came to tell you some news, but you tell me about the letter first, we’ve got plenty of time.”

Reluctantly, he set you back down on the stool and reached across the bar, grabbing a bottle of red wine and a couple of glasses from the rack above. He kept reaching to touch you as he poured the wine and pulled another stool towards you, sitting with his thick thighs bracketing your legs in between his, his feet rubbing gently against your ankles. He raised his glass to his lips then set it back on the bar before leaning over and kissing you hard and firm, his big hand scratching at your scalp as he held your head, leaving you seeing stars when he eventually pulled away.

“Sorry baby, jus’ wanted to do that quickly before I tell y’what’s happened.”

“You’re worrying me now Clyde, is it bad?” 

“No, shit, sorry, it’s nothin’ serious, I just gotta go to court soon. The, uh, the men who trashed the bar -“

 _The men who hurt him_ went unsaid.

“- they’re sayin’ it wasn’t them, gonna say they’re not guilty, so I gotta go give evidence. Should only take a day up in Charleston, but I got the letter tellin’ me this afternoon. When I saw you here, I thought that somehow maybe you knew?”

You laced your fingers with his, stroking his strong calloused hand gently. “I didn’t know, but I’m glad I do now. Do you know when it’ll be?” 

He took a deep drink from his glass, and you couldn’t help but watch as his tongue nipped out to catch a stray drop that caught in the corner of his mouth. 

“June, maybe, if they get their acts together and sort out their side of the evidence, statements, whatever.” Another sip, another glimpse of his tongue. “I was gonna ask if, maybe, you’d mind comin’ down for it? I’d really appreciate you bein’ there, and I know it’s a long way... but you’re here now, somehow, an’ I can’t work out why. Have you been plannin’ this, like a surprise?”

You winked at him, taking another mouthful from your glass as the butterflies in your stomach erupted joyously once again. “Funny you should mention that... I’ll be here again in June. And July, and definitely August too. And right through until... who knows when?”

You caught the brief flash of confusion that caused his brow to wrinkle for the briefest of moments before understanding dawned across his face. You thought you’d seen him happy before but this was something else, his deep brown eyes shining, his lips stretched wide in a glowing, toothy smile. He took both your hands in his and kissed them, then your forehead, then each cheek, then blessedly your lips.

“You sayin’ what I think you’re sayin’? You’re moving to West Virginia?”

You nodded, unable to hide your excitement any longer. “Better than that, handsome. I’ve been offered a job at the school in Danville, fifteen minutes away from here. I start after the summer holidays, but I was planning on moving as soon as the school year finishes in Vermont in June. How does that sound?”

“That, that sounds... fuck that sounds perfect. Y’really mean it? You’re moving _here_?”

“Mmhmm, I am. If you’ll have me.”

“I’ll always have you. Always.”

He pulled back from where he’d been pressing his lips against your cheekbone, his metal hand resting on your thigh. With his right hand he grabbed a hold of your arm, pulling you from the stool again and hoisting you up into his arms with what sounded like a growl. Instinctively you wrapped your legs around his waist, holding on for dear life as he stormed across the bar to the door, pulling it tightly shut after tapping codes into the security panel. As the door locked behind you, you watched from over Clyde’s shoulder as the lights of the bar dimmed, leaving only the outside security bulb glowing in the early evening light.

You knew exactly where he was taking you, remembering the same hurried walk from bar to trailer that the two of you had made on a much darker Christmas Eve. He didn’t set you down on your feet until you reached the trailer door, finding your overnight back waiting for you there. Mellie’s doing, no doubt about it. Unlocking the door, Clyde grabbed both you and the bag and pulled you inside the dim, cool interior, pulling the door shut behind you before pressing you up against it, imposing himself in your personal space. His forearms pressed into the wall either side of your head, his body leaning into yours. You set your hands on his hips, digging gently at the firm flesh that lay beneath the plain black t-shirt and jeans that covered him.

“Baby, I gotta warn ya, I’ve been wantin’ you real bad for so long now, I don’t know how gentle I’ll be...”

His gravelly words slipped under your skin like a promise, and you pulled his hips more firmly against you, heart fluttering as you felt him pressed firm and hard against your hip.

“I don’t want gentle, Clyde. We can do gentle tomorrow. I just want you, here, right now. Please.”

It was your ‘please’ that cracked his poise, as he picked you up for the third time (you were starting to think he was just showing off his regained strength) and placed you on the edge of the kitchen counter. His stubble scratched at your skin as he kissed you, his tongue exploring your mouth as though re-learning the way you moved against him. Your impatient hands pulled the t-shirt from his body, bunching it up under his arms until he yanked it over his head and tossed it somewhere else entirely. You latched your mouth to his neck, then his collarbone, running your tongue over his chest and sucking lightly on his nipple. He groaned, clutching your head against him as he moved closer. You hooked your ankles behind his legs and held on tight, willing him to press himself hard against your core.

Once you’d finished paying attention to his broad chest (and god, how you’d missed the taste of his skin against your tongue), you began undoing the row of small black buttons that ran the full length of the front of your dress. You’d cursed them when you’d put it on, being small and fiddly little things, but watching Clyde watch you, his eyes entranced as, with each button you untied another stretch of skin was revealed to him, his bottom lip sucked swollen between his teeth as you eventually came to undo the last button, you promised never to complain about the dress again. You slipped the dress off your shoulders like a shirt, pulling your arms free and leaving the fabric pooled on the counter below. You leaned back from Clyde’s embrace just enough to stretch out for him, waiting for his reaction when he realised -

“Wait, I know this.” He rubbed a cautious thumb over the strap of the crimson bra you wore. “Festive?”

Smiling up at him, you bit your lip and nodded once. “Wanted you to see it, for real this time.”

“I do wanna see it... I wanna see it up close, an’ then I wanna see it on my bedroom floor...”

You let him, stretching out a little more for him as his hand traced every stitch in the lace bra, rubbing circles through the fabric as your nipples hardened at his touch. When he pushed each strap down off your shoulders you could have wept, the look in his eyes nothing short of _reverent_ as your breasts spilled over the tops of the lace cups. 

“Come to bed, baby. Let me take care of you...”

You followed him through the trailer, laying down on the bed and watching as he unhooked his belt from his jeans then pushed the fabric down his legs, kicking the garment to the corner of the room. You held out your hand and he took it, crawling across the bed to settle between your legs, only his boxers and your tiny lace underwear between you. As promised, he unhooked your bra and dropped it off the side of the bed, not caring where it landed, his full attention on the swell of your breasts as he sucked an already pebbled nipple into his mouth. He flicked his tongue over the peak, gently teasing it with his teeth and moved to do the same to the other breast, the cool air almost burning the hot damp skin he left behind.

You were already squirming beneath him and he’d barely touched you, his weight resting on his left arm as his right hand stroked up and down your side. He kissed under the curve of your breasts, determined to taste every inch of skin his mouth could reach, and you sighed his name when his lips travelled over your stomach, gasping when he bit gently on your hip. 

“M’gonna take such good care of you, baby, I promise... Wanna be so good for you...”

“You are Clyde, you’re already so fucking good...” Had it been anyone else, you’d have been embarrassed at how utterly wrecked you sounded already, but it wasn’t anyone else, it was Clyde, _your Clyde_ , and you wanted him to know just how perfect he made you feel. Hell, you’d scream it from the window if he asked.

“Will you do somethin’ for me, baby?” 

Could he read your mind? Was he going to ask?

“Anything, Clyde...”

He looked up at you from where his head rested on your hip bone, his mouth so close to where you wanted him to be. “I want you to get up, stand at the bottom of the bed, an’ take these sexy little panties off for me. Real slow.”

 _This_ was new, but it made something in your stomach burn with pure want. You nodded and he rolled from your body, letting you get up from the bed and move into position just as he asked. He rolled into the middle of the bed and kicked off his boxers, then motioned for you to start.

Whenever anyone had asked you to strip for them before, you’d never been able to shake off the awkward, uncomfortable sensation of being watched. Not this time. Clyde’s gaze was one of pure love as you traced your fingers over your body, slipping them under the elastic. You were going to just push the fabric down but something in his expression stopped you; instead, your pushed your right hand a little further, cupping yourself inside your underwear, letting your fingertips get lost between your already soaking folds. 

“Jesus baby, that’s so good...”. You lifted your attention from your hand to Clyde as he spoke, his own hand gripping his erection as he slowly, languidly began to stroke himself. 

Emboldened, you pushed the elastic waistband a little lower with your left hand as the fingers of your right explored further, stroking into the slick heat of your cunt before focusing on your clit. Clyde’s eyes watched your hand under the fabric, watched as he saw your knuckle flex as you rubbed at the sensitive bundle of nerves. He could have watched that for hours, but your sudden gasp as you touched yourself _just right_ snapped him from the dream.

“That’ll do. Take ‘em off, and come up here.”

You did exactly as he asked, turning and bending over to give him a real show as you stepped out of your underwear, then crawled up the bed to rest upon him. Just as you were about to reach for him, to line him up with your entrance and sink into him, he pulled you further, dragging you from his hips to his stomach, then to his chest.

“Clyde, what are you doing?”

“M’gonna tell you somethin’ that’s been on my mind every mornin’ for the last three weeks...”

“What’s that then?” You were intrigued, watching as his thumb rubbed gentle circles into your thigh.

“For the last three weeks, every mornin’, I’ve jerked off in the shower thinkin’ about you up here, sittin’ on my face an’ letting me eat you out ‘til you just about forget your own name...

And now you’re here, and you’re so close, an’ I still can’t get the idea outta my mind. Can I?”

You swallowed hard, his speech sending every drop of moisture straight to your eager cunt. “Can you what, exactly?”

He loved that you were teasing him, making him say it again. He’d grown bolder since your relationship had started; he’d never been a prude or close-minded, but you pushed him just the way he liked. He loved teasing and being teased, he wanted to please you any way he could, and if that meant repeating his darkest desires over and over, so be it.

“Can I hold that pretty pussy of yours against my mouth an’ make you forget your own birthday?” 

“Fucking hell, god yes.”

It was sloppy, hungry and indelicate but christ it was everything you’d wanted and more. He pulled you to his face and lapped at your essence like he was dying, parched, and only you could satisfy him. He alternated between licking thick hot strokes over your entrance and folds and circling your clit with the tip of his tongue; later he’d tell you he’d been ‘writing’ letters against you, but at this point all you knew was that he was making good on his promise to banish all sense from your brain. 

Without a hint of self-control you circled your hips over his face, grinding down on him, spilling hungry little gasps from your mouth as he sucked your clit hard between his lips. Without warning he plunged two fingers into you, the intrusion burning and stretching you to the precipice of pain. He kept soothing you with his tongue as his fingers began to move, and before long you were a moaning, writhing, tormented mess as your orgasm crashed through you. It was all you could do to cling to the bed’s headboard and literally ride it out, Clyde’s mouth and fingers taking you to the point of over-stimulation. With a wanton sigh you lifted yourself from your position over his face, moving down the bed and curling up beside him, little tremors sparking up your body as Clyde rolled over to face you.

“That was better than any bathroom fantasy... jesus I’ll never get tired of tastin’ you...”.

You could barely speak, instead deciding to kiss him hard, savouring the taste of yourself on his lips and tongue. He must have liked that, because soon he was caging your body below his and thrusting wildly against your hip like a horny teenager. You giggled against his lips, pushing his face back. “You know you can actually fuck me, right?”

He leaned over and bit down on your shoulder, pressing his achingly hard cock against you as he moved. Turning his head to the side, he pressed his lips to the shell of your ear, and whispered. “Baby, I’m just about to. Y’sure you’re ready?”

You gasped out a ‘yes’, expecting him to press you into the mattress and fuck you into next week. Instead, he pulled away from you, sitting back on his heels and gesturing you to follow. 

“Told you before, I don’t think I can be gentle right now, that still okay?”

You nodded, intrigued. “I trust you.”

At your confirmation his expression warmed, and he kissed you softly before moving his mouth up your jawline to your ear. “Get on your hands and knees, baby. Spread your legs, lemme get a good look at you.”

His voice, that damn deep voice of his, had your eyes fluttering, your heart stuttering, your breath catching in your lungs. Without hesitation you did exactly as asked, loving the confidence exuding from him in waves, how desired it made you feel. This man, this beautiful, strong, clever, brilliant man, _wanted_ you.

You felt the mattress dip as he positioned himself behind you, chancing a glance over your shoulder to watch his movements. Again he sat back on his heels, studying you intimately, tracing his right hand up and down the back of your thigh before he rose to his knees and gripped your hip. Without warning he plunged into you, sheathing himself fully inside, leaning his body forward to kiss into your neck as he started to move. 

“You okay, baby?” His voice was ragged, hazy with lust, and you could sense just how hard he was working to not cut loose and lose himself completely inside you. You didn’t want him to have to hold back for a minute longer; no, neither of you would last long, but you both _needed it_ , needed this first time together again to be just like this. You pushed back to meet his thrusts, sighing his name with the small breaths you could catch, and told him to _move_.

And move he did, leaning up to grip tight into your hip and fuck you, his pelvis slapping so hard and fast against you you were sure you’d be feeling it for days to come. When he scratched his fingernails down the ridges of your spine you arched your back and almost howled at the sensation, the sweet blend of pain and pleasure causing you to clench right around his dick. He kept his prosthetic hand on your left hip as his right reached down to play with your nipple, his lips soothing the scratches on your back as you tilted your pelvis up, letting him hit a little deeper. 

He must have liked the new angle because you could feel his breath stutter on your back, his fingers pinching your nipple just too tight for a fraction of a second. In response he pulled you up onto just your knees with him, his hand dipping down to frantically rub at your swollen nub as you pulled his face to yours for a deep kiss. You moaned into his mouth as he stroked you, his cock plunging deeper still as you felt another rush of warmth flood around him. You were soaked, almost dripping around him, and the image in your mind caused you to clench and tighten around his cock once again.

“M’not gonna last long now baby, can I get you there too?”

“Keep talking Clyde, don’t stop, I’m nearly there...”. You weren’t sure he’d understand you, your words surely scrambled by the waves of desire that kept rolling and rolling through your body, each one bringing you a step closer to your peak.

“Y’like my voice, baby? Y’like me tellin’ you how wet you are ‘round my dick? How hard y’got me, how good you feel on me?”

You groaned, tipping your head back against his shoulder as he spoke. “Yes, just like that, just a little bit more...”

You felt his movements quickening, and knew he was close too. “Baby, I’m gonna cum so hard, y’got me so close already, gonna fill you up, make you shout out when I do it, god you feel so fuckin’ good, I’m so -“

“Fuck yes Clyde, I’m there, jesus!” You shouted out a litany of praise, his name spilling from your mouth as your whole body burned for him, arching against him, pushing your breasts out, your cunt against him, your whole body trembling as he tore your orgasm from you. He’d made you come so many times before but this was the strongest yet, burning hot right through your bones, the only thing you could feel was _him_ , within you and around you. You could feel his cock pulse inside you, filling you with his cum, his lips mouthing sloppily at your neck, his hand moving from your over-stimulated clit to rest on the curve of your stomach. 

The two of you settled at last, Clyde dropping down to his heels once again, bringing you with him as he curled both arms around you. You pulled his arms tighter and turned to kiss him, gentle now, the reckless urgency of your need for him sated for a while now at least. 

“You okay there? I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“You just gave me the best orgasm of my life, Clyde, I am so much more than okay.”

You felt him smile against your lips, kissing you softly before trying to untangle himself from you, being as gentle as he could when he finally slipped from your body. You let yourself curl up on top of the bedsheets while he vanished into the bathroom, returning a few minutes later with a huge glass of water, a damp cloth and towel. He handed you the glass and, while you drank, gently wiped your body clean, kissing your thighs one last time once he’d towelled your damp skin dry. The gesture was so sensitive, so caring and full of love that you couldn’t bear the thought of him not being as close as possible to you for a moment longer, so you wriggled under the sheets and pulled him in beside you, wrapping yourself around him. His limbs were everywhere, enveloping you in his embrace. 

You kissed lazily for a while, happy just to enjoy having each other again at long last, taking your time to explore each other’s bodies with just fingertips this time, reconnecting after too long spent apart. 

When he spoke, his voice was soft, slow with sleep and lazy contentment. “M’gonna love you like this for the rest of my life, if you let me...”

You kissed the corner of his mouth one last time, tucking your head under his chin. “I’ll let you, it’s a promise. There’s no-one else on this planet for me, Clyde. Just you.”

Neither of you needed any more words that night, both falling asleep safe and warm in each other’s arms, knowing that when the morning came neither of you would be in any rush to leave the bed any time soon.  
 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t know about you guys, but I need a drink.


	19. Chapter 19

The rest of your short time in Boone County was spent either holed up in Clyde’s trailer making up for the months spent apart or following up on the leads the school had given you, checking out a couple of apartments that were made available for staff moving to the area. You brought Clyde along with you to each viewing, watching as he inspected each and every socket, tap, window latch and alarm, muttering under his breath while you tried to picture yourself living there. None of the places you viewed really set your heart on fire, but you tried to keep the bigger picture in mind – no matter where in Boone County you moved to, you’d be closer to Clyde, and that made any damp, dirty or dark little apartment worth it.

Clyde disagreed.

“Baby, that last apartment was a public health disaster waitin’ to happen! Did you see the mould stains on the ceiling an’ the rug? An' the ant traps in each closet? Y’can’t move in there.”

“Clyde, I might not have a choice – I need to sign on for _somewhere_ before June, and this is the only chance I’ve got to view anywhere before that.”

“There’s always a choice. Leave it with me, okay? I’ll keep lookin’ for you, and I’ll find y’somethin’ perfect. You deserve it.”

It was three weeks after your return to Burlington when Clyde made good on his word. You were on your lunchbreak at school, hiding indoors from an early-May rain shower when Clyde’s video call came through. 

“Clyde? You okay? I’m at work so can’t talk long…”

“I know, I’ll be real quick. Just keep watchin’.” 

You watched as he switched the camera to show a light, bright empty room, one wall lined with windows pouring sunlight across a polished wooden floor. A small brick fireplace sat in the far corner of the room, the walls surrounding it painted a warm white. 

“This here’s the livingroom – nice an’ bright in the morning, but cosy at night. An’ if we go through here – “ As he narrated, he moved through an arched opening into a kitchen, all white cupboards and granite worktops, a large stainless steel oven and hob in the centre of the workspace, “ – this is the kitchen, obviously. Lotsa space in here, could put a bigger dining table in too…”

“Clyde this place is beautiful, but I don’t think it’s really in my price range – “

“Ssh, just wait ‘til you see upstairs…” He skipped out of the kitchen and up the staircase that led from a small hallway. “Up here y’got three bedrooms – biggest one’s got its own bathroom too. The other two are smaller but look fine, each got closets built in too...” He poked the camera inside the largest room and sure enough, you saw another light and airy space with a door that led, you supposed, to the en suite.

“It’s gorgeous Clyde, really, but there is no way I can afford a house, nevermind a house as nice as this one looks – “

"You can."

"I can't. I know the state of my bank balance, and it wouldn't cover one room in that house."

“It’s yours. The whole house. All yours.” Clyde flicked the camera back on him as he spoke, a nervous, excited smile on his face. 

“Say that again?”

“You heard. It’s yours. I bought it.”

You dropped the hand that had been holding your phone up during Clyde’s impromptu house tour and let out a shaky, anxious breath. He’d bought a house? You tried to catch hold of the thoughts racing around your brain, only coming back to yourself when you heard Clyde calling to you from your phone.

“Baby? Talk to me, what’re you thinkin’?”

You raised the phone again and tried to compose yourself.

“You’ve bought a house? For me? How? I don’t understand…”

“I, I uh… I came into some money a couple of years back, an’ never done much with it. I know you’ve been lookin’ at rental places, but they’ve all been small an’ dirty an’ you deserve better. And… what’s the point in me havin’ money if I do nothin’ with it? I wanna do this for you.” You watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed, the excitement that had lit up his face dwindling. “Did I fuck up here? I feel like I might've fucked up...”

“No! No, god Clyde no… it’s just a lot to take in all at once. No-one’s ever… I mean, it’s a huge thing you’ve done, and it’s not that I’m not grateful or excited because I really am, I promise… It’s just... wow, you’ve bought a house. For me. I can’t believe it.”

“Believe it, baby. It’s all yours.”

The bell on the ceiling above you screamed into life, announcing the end of break. “Clyde I’ve got to go; the kids will be back inside in a minute and I’ve got a million and one things to do this afternoon. We’ll talk about this tonight, okay?”

This time he couldn’t hide the disappointed expression from clouding his face. “Oh, okay, sure. I’ll talk to you later, when you’ve got time.”

Before you could say anything more, he ended the call, leaving you staring at your phone as the classroom filled up with damp, excitable six-year-olds.

\------------

“What’s eating you? You’ve barely said a word all afternoon.” Claudia was perched on the tiny table you crouched at as you worked to glue down a bundle of her pupil's paintings onto colourful card, ready to stick up on the wall.

“Nothing’s eating me, I’m fine.” You kept your voice low, conscious of the kids around you.

“Well, that’s a lie. You’ve been in a mood since lunch – I heard Cole over there calling you ‘Miss Grumpypants’ a while ago.” She pointed to the tiny boy across the classroom who was busy concentrating on pasting sequins down in the shape of the letter ‘C’.

“It’s nothing, it’s – god, okay, fine. Clyde’s bought a house. For me to live in when I move there.”

“Okay... now, this is where a normal person would be bouncing off the walls with excitement, knowing their house-hunting woes were over… You, on the other hand, look like your pet rabbit just died.”

“I am excited – I know I don’t look it but I am. It’s just… it’s a _huge_ thing, right? He bought _a house_. What if he thinks I _owe him_ something now - “

Claudia scoffed, shaking her head. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. When has he ever made you feel like that? From what you’ve told me of him, the guy’s smitten with you. Has he ever made you feel like you’d ever owe him anything?”

You frowned, dropping the glue stick and painting you’d been wrestling with in order to focus fully on Claudia. “No, never. He’s been _the best_ since day one.”

“Mmm hmm. Yet you’re sitting here freaking out because…? Use your words now, I know you’ve got it in you…”

You grumbled, knowing Claudia was right and hating it. “Because… because I’m 'projecting'…”

She gestured for you to continue. “Mm hmm? You’re projecting what?”

“My ex-husband’s behaviour onto Clyde, again.”

Claudia clapped and got to her feet, brushing off a rogue sequin from her leg. “That’s a bingo! Hear that class, Miss Grumpypants here just made some good progress! Well done!” The class full of six-year-olds clapped and cheered for you, not knowing why exactly they were clapping. Once they’d settled down to work again, Claudia returned to lean on the table you’d been working at.

“Listen up. If you really are uncomfortable with what he’s done, you need to tell him and tell him why, and be honest about it. But if this is just anxiety, crappy ex-husband related anxiety, you need to work on dealing with that yourself before you spoil something that, to me, sounds pretty close to perfect. You love him enough to move there, right?”

“Of course I do. More than anything.”

"Then work out what's making you feel like this, and tell him. Tell him what you need. If he's half the man you've described him to be, I think he'll understand."

\------------

It was late when you called Clyde that night. You half expected him to be in the bar when he answered, but instead he was already in bed.

“Hey, I thought you’d still be at work?”

“Took the night off, Mellie said she’d go check in on Earl. Tuesday’s are always quiet anyway, I don't mind not goin' in." He chewed his bottom lip, worrying at the skin there.

“Clyde, I’m sorry. You must think I’m such an ungrateful cow – “

“I would never think that. Never.”

“I was just surprised. I can’t believe you’d do something like this for me…”

“I jus’ want you to be happy here, an’ when I saw the house was for sale I thought you’d like it – maybe I shoulda waited an’ asked, maybe it’s too much too soon. I can call the realtor an' back out if it’s too much…”

You blanched. “No! No, don’t! Clyde, thank you, seriously. There’s a couple of things we need to discuss and agree on, but I’d love to live there…”

That gorgeous sunshine-smile spread right across his face as you spoke.

“There’s just one condition, okay?”

“Anythin’, baby, name it.”

You swallowed, took a deep breath, then spoke. “You live there with me. We live there together, like a proper couple."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had planned to cover so much more in this chapter, but then there was just so. much. talking. and if I'd continued we'd have War and Peace. So I stopped where I stopped, but the next update won't be far away since I'm pretty sure I know what I want it to cover.
> 
> Once again, thank you for your comments and kudos and reading just sticking with me on this magical mystery tour. You're all brilliant and making me smile.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in updating; life has thrown me a series of spiked, flaming, heat-seeking curveballs lately which sapped all the energy from my brain. I’m posting this teeny short update so that I stop editing/deleting/angsting and just *post something* to get me back in the groove again. I hope it’s okay. x

Clyde Logan had always been over-familiar with wanting. Longing. Imagining. He’d spent the majority of his teenage years daydreaming of being something other than he was; usually, he dreamt of being more handsome, more popular, _more_ than his awkward, disproportionate, string-bean frame would allow. The feeling had clung to Clyde like moss on a rock for years, even after exercise and training made his awkwardly long body fill out and broaden with muscle. It wasn’t until he’d found himself in the forces, embedded for months in a vast oppressive desert, not just surviving but _thriving_ , that he discovered a sense of pride and self-worth that until that moment had always eluded him. A little voice inside his head always taunted him, reminding him that it wouldn’t last, so that day, when he woke up minus his left hand in a military hospital somewhere near Al Asad, he couldn’t muster up the energy to feel cheated or angry. The Logan curse had caught up with him at last.

On the rare occasions when he let himself be real honest, Clyde could admit that he’d spent most of his teenage years not just wishing he was “more”, but wishing he was more like Jimmy - on one godawful night, aged around fourteen, he’d taken his Momma’s huge fabric shears and cut and shaved his thick black hair almost scalp-short, just like Jimmy kept his, only to become the local laughing stock when his oversized features drew more mocking attention than he knew how to handle. He spent months bitterly regretting the impulsive decision, growing out his hair until his ears were hidden once more and he could pull the thick dark mop over his face to cover his nose when he really wanted to disappear. His Momma had wept when she saw what he’d done, and the fabric shears and barber’s scissors had vanished from her sewing box overnight.

He still missed his mother. He missed her comforting arms and constant encouragement, the way she’d bring him extra books back from the library on a Thursday while he was in school, the cookies she’d turn a blind eye to him sneaking from the cooling rack when he sought refuge in the kitchen from his big brother’s schemes and taunts. Her premature death had left him reeling, perhaps even more than it affected Jimmy or Mellie; on his worst days he could have sworn God had come along in the night, scooped out his heart with a blunt spoon and left a raw, gaping hole behind in its place. He and Jimmy still found it too painful to talk about their mother in any depth or detail, Mellie always acting like a buffer for their raw emotions as she did her best to navigate her brothers’ shared sense of loss and guilt. In their minds, Momma had been so busy taking care of them and their near-constant mischief and scrapes that she’d forgotten to take care of herself, only realising something was amiss when it was too late. Despite the guilt he’d forever carry with him, he hoped that she’d be proud of the man he’d become, cauliflower schemes included.

So now, on a baking hot Saturday in mid-June, as he stared at the small wooden house that he knew he’d be calling home for the foreseeable future and beyond, he wondered two things. Firstly, what his momma would say about his girl and their new place together, and secondly, he wondered if everyone felt like this, now that the ache of wanting something he couldn’t have had near vanished from his chest? He felt light, carefree, knowing that the four walls in front of him held every possibility he could ever dream of. He didn’t need to want for something out of reach anymore, because all he’d ever wanted was on the other side of a blue wooden door waiting for him and him alone.

The blue door in question swung open, snapping Clyde from his reverie as a flurry of semi-collapsed cardboard boxes were flung outside onto the small patch of front lawn from within the house. 

“Hey, Clyde?! Can you squash those properly and chuck them in the recycling, and I’ll unpack whatever’s left in the van?” You were already wild-haired, sweaty and caked in a layer of Boone County dust, having spent the morning unpacking and arranging everything that Clyde and Jimmy had ferried from the trailer to the new house. Neither you nor Clyde were sure how either of you had managed to hoard so much stuff, especially since you’d sold most of your furniture before you’d left Vermont, yet each time Jimmy’s truck appeared outside the house he and Clyde would carry boxes and crates, chairs and side tables, a wardrobe, a small dining table, or a bit of a bed frame into the little wooden house. When Clyde returned late in the afternoon from what he swore was the last trip, he found you upstairs in the master bedroom, screwing together the final wooden slats that formed the secondhand Ikea bed frame that you’d found for sale on Craigslist the previous weekend. Kneeling on the floor in an oversized Pearl Jam shirt, greying yoga pants and wielding a set of hex keys with intent, your hair tufting angrily from the elastic you’d tied it in that morning, your face flushed from concentration and exertion as well as the rising heat of the summer afternoon, Clyde felt the hole that had been left gaping in his chest fill up with pure love and adoration. The inner voice that had constantly taunted him as a youth had mellowed and softened as the years had passed, now promising only one thing; _”you’re gonna marry that girl, Clyde Logan, this is it for you.”_ From his spot watching you as he leaned against the bedroom door frame, he smiled.

You stood up and stretched out your aching legs from kneeling on the wooden floor, lifting the baggy shirt to wipe your sweaty face against the fabric. When you dropped the hem of the shirt back down, Clyde’s brown eyes were wide and warm and fixed on you.

“What? Do I have muck on my face or something?” You wiped your cheek on your shoulder, sure with the way Clyde was staring you must have smeared something on yourself.

“No. I just realised somethin’ here.” He crossed the bedroom floor to wrap his arms around you, stepping over discarded hand tools and flat-pack instruction sheets far more daintily than a man of his size should have been able to. 

“What did you realise, all the way over by the door, watching me wrestle with hell in furniture form?”

“That you’re wasted in teachin’. You should be buildin’ furniture in here everyday.”

You leaned back from his embrace, your hands flat on his chest as you squinted up at him quizzically. “You think I’d be better off sweating over oak veneered plywood and chasing tiny wee bastard screws all day, every day?”

“If you wear my old shirts an’ those tight little gym pants doin’ it, then yes ma’am, I do.” He grinned, then ran his tongue over your temple where a bead of sweat was making a break for freedom. Neither of you bothered building any more furniture that day.

——————


	21. Chapter 21

Three days after you and Clyde had moved all of your worldly possessions into the new house you now shared, the two of you found yourselves sitting on a small stone bench outside the District Court in Charleston, both of you nursing half-finished iced teas while Clyde’s left knee bounced up and down anxiously.

Despite the excitement of the “big move” as he’d called it, and how much you both loved the fact that you were in West Virginia on a permanent basis now, the stress of the looming day had caused signs of Clyde’s PTSD to rear up. You’d noticed him phasing out a couple of times, and he’d started jittering his left leg like a nervous tic when oppressive thoughts began to build. Mellie had warned you of what to expect now you were living together, and had given you suggestions on how to help bring him back to himself when things got overwhelming. Sometimes a hand on his arm was enough to draw him back, other times talking about your day, or narrating whatever was showing on the television at the time had helped. Distraction, reassurance, and love - you could give all three to him in spades. You placed a hand on Clyde’s jittery knee, trying to draw his attention back to you. 

“Did you bring everything you might need?”

“Yup. Where’s Mellie?” His voice was tight and harsh, frustration and anxiety hanging in every syllable.

“She’s trying to find somewhere to park, she’ll be here as soon as she can.”

Clyde’s hand shook, spilling some of the leftover tea from the plastic cup. He licked the spilled ice tea from his hand, cursing under his breath. You wiped drops of the spilled drink from his smart suit trousers, dabbing at the small spill to try and avoid any stains. He brushed your helping hand away dismissively, then froze, tentatively reaching out to link his shaking fingers with yours.

“M’sorry, I didn’t think I’d feel like this.”

You hushed him, squeezing his knee reassuringly. “You have every right to feel the way you do. It’s a big deal, but I promise it’s all going to work out.”

“Y’think so?”

“I know so. It’ll be fine. Look, here’s Mel.”

A familiar click-clack of skyscraper heels on smooth sidewalk heralded the youngest Logan’s arrival outside the court, enormous silver-framed sunglasses hiding most of her face. “What are y’all waitin’ for, we goin’ in?”

——————

“Mister Logan, do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

“Yes sir, I do.”

You were sat in the front row of the court’s seating area as Clyde took the stand to give his statement about the attack in December. He hadn’t slept at all the night before, and you could see the dark circles plaguing his eyes as he focused on the court clerk and not on the two men who smirked and leered from their side of the courtroom. The sight of them made your stomach turn, rage hot and angry deep in your gut. You wanted to leap over the security barriers that split the court in two and tear the men limb from limb for what they had done to Clyde, but that wouldn’t help matters. Instead you concentrated your energy on Clyde as he spoke, sending him a reassuring smile as he answered each question put to him as firmly and to the point as he could.

From the plastic chair beside you, Mellie’s attention was focused on the two defendants; she was so riled up, she was practically snarling each time either of the men dared to even breathe. Her fury hadn’t gone unnoticed, the prosecutor’s assistant turning from his seat up ahead to pointedly glare at Mellie, mouthing at her to behave. She had smiled sweetly, hiding a two-fingered salute behind her oversized tote bag (Clyde’s Christmas gift to her) and softened her expression just enough so as not to look completely murderous. You’d never loved her more.

As Clyde finished answering the first set of questions, Mellie lowered her voice to a whisper. “Are the two of you all set for tomorrow?”

You nodded quickly, only half listening to her as Clyde continued with his responses. “He’s going to Jimmy’s later tonight, and I’ll meet him at the hotel tomorrow.”

“That’s fine, he’ll keep Jimmy entertained. I’ll pick you up from the house on the way in the morning, saves you driving too.”

Jimmy and Sylvia’s wedding was just a matter of hours away, and while you knew the whole Logan clan were excited for it, there was just the small matter of Clyde’s attackers to deal with first. The court case had faced delay upon delay which had only added to Clyde’s stress about it all, which in turn had set both Mellie and Jimmy’s worries on high alert for their brother. As excited as he was for his brother’s impending wedding, the court case had weighed heavily on his mind. Neither of you could wait for the day to be over.

“I’m so glad you were able to move down before today - he won’t say it out loud, but he needed you here with him.”

“I’d have come down anyway, whether I could have moved or not. I’d never let him do this alone.” You turned to look at her, regretting your choice of words. “Not that he would have been alone-alone, he’s always had you and Jimmy - “

“Yeah, but he needed you. I’m glad you’re here.”

“Me too.”

She looped her arm through yours and the two of you refocused your very different attentions on the men before you, much to the chagrin of the prosecutor’s assistant.

——————

The questioning from both prosecution and defence had been rigorous - forceful in some moments, and by the time Clyde was dismissed from the witness stand he looked ready to sleep for a week. The three of you left the court immediately, none of you wanting to be near the two defendants for a moment longer than necessary, and after a relatively quick drive back from Charleston, you and Clyde were curled up sleepily on the oversized leather couch that filled up much of the space in your new living room, the day’s events catching up with both of you.

“Did the lawyer say anything about when you’d hear a verdict?”

Clyde’s heartbeat was steady and strong against your ear as he held you tightly against him, sprawled out on his back on the sofa. “He’ll phone as soon as it comes through - he seemed hopeful, but I’ll believe it when I hear it.”

You checked your watch - four pm. “There’s time yet, don’t worry. Are you sure you’re okay to go to Jimmy’s tonight? I’m sure he’d understand if you’d rather stay home...”

Clyde lifted his head just enough to catch a glimpse of your watch, and after pressing a brief kiss to your scalp he let his head fall back to the cushion again. “M’fine, nothin’ another hour or two like this won’t fix. Can’t leave him on his own the night before his wedding anyway, it’s bad luck or something.”

You smirked, poking your finger through a hole you’d found in the ancient t-shirt he’d pulled on as soon as you’d returned from Charleston and his tight suit had become too much to bear. “One day you need to tell me all about this ‘thing’ you have about luck, Clyde.”

“I will, as long as y’promise not to laugh.”

“I won’t laugh. Not to your face, anyway.”

He snorted, swatting your backside playfully in response. “I see how it is, now we’re livin’ together you think you don’t need to be nice anymore, okay, I’ll remember that...”

“Oh behave, I’m always nice!” You proved as much by not tickling the living daylights out of him, no matter how tempting the hole in his shirt looked. 

“Yeah, you have your moments.” He squeezed you a little tighter, and soon the two of you were dozing sleepily as the late afternoon heat cooled into a balmy evening.

Just as Clyde’s snoring became a little deeper, his phone burst into life. He snapped into some kind of wakefulness, answering quickly as he pulled the two of you upright.

“Yeah this is Clyde Logan... okay... yeah that was fast... an’ that’s everything? Okay, okay, well thanks for lettin’ me know. Yes sir, I will. Thanks again, bye.” He hung up, and dropped the phone to the floor below the couch. “They’re guilty on all charges. Both lookin’ at a long, long time in jail. Started fightin’ each other in the dock when the judge started talkin’. It’s all over. I can’t believe it.”

You flung yourself at him, pressing kisses everywhere your mouth could find. Six months on from an attack that had almost cost him his life but that had also brought the two of you together, the ordeal was over at long last. Your kisses turned to smiles, then laughter, hooting and hollering as Clyde’s emotions turned from worry and fear to hopefulness and relief. Yes, he’d been beaten and bloodied, terrified and painfully sad, but he was free and happier than he’d ever been in all his years. He spent the evening stealing kisses from you at every opportunity, even as he packed an overnight bag and his new suit into the truck ready to take to Jimmy’s for the night. Just when you thought he was getting ready to leave he took you by the hand and dragged the two of you into the bathroom where you showered together lazily, grinning into each other’s mouths as the relief of the verdict bled into excitement for the wedding the next day. Later that night, when he messaged you pictures of himself, Jimmy, Earl and Joe Bang knee-deep in celebratory beers you kissed the screen and messaged to tell him to check his pants pocket for the painkillers you’d slipped inside, knowing all the Logan men (and Logan-adjacent’s) would need them the next morning. His response was as adorable as it was drunken.

[Clyde]: how did i get so fckuibg lucky? ? You ar e so perfect thank you bby   
[Clyde]: we should grt marked too  
[Clyde]: mariidd   
[Clyde]: mrraied  
[Clyde]: a wedding   
[Clyde]: and maybe a dog also

It was only later, a long while after you’d replied saying “ask me again when you’re sober and not listening to Jimmy the Bridezilla” that you realised that, if he did ask you for real, you’d have no hesitation in saying yes. You fell asleep with a smile on your face, and couldn’t wait to see Clyde again in the morning.


	22. Chapter 22

You hadn’t really expected to see Clyde until after the wedding ceremony; as Best Man, his first responsibility was to keep Jimmy as calm as possible and make sure that, at least for the Groom’s part, everything went off without issue, but as Mellie’s car pulled into the parking area outside the venue (a lush country club west of Charleston), you spotted Clyde lingering by the main door, clearly waiting for your arrival. 

He was not a happy man.

He stormed over to the car as soon as Mellie slowed into a parking bay and, rather than open your door to help you out of the backseat, he yanked open the opposite door and folded himself inside the back of Mellie’s car, an origami of legs and arms and thick dark hair, panic pouring off him.

“Clyde. Explain.” Mellie had picked up on his tension as soon as she’d spotted him and kept the car engine running, her blue eyes fixed on his brown in the rear view mirror.

“Venue’s double booked, an’ they decided not to tell us until this mornin’. Total clusterfuck. Other bride’s daddy’s paid a ton of cash to secure their booking over Jim ‘n Sylvia’s. Jimmy’s on the phone to her now. Ain’t goin’ well.”

Mellie leaned forward, her yelled-out expletives muffled only by the blaring of the horn each time her forehead hit the steering wheel. Joe, riding shotgun beside her up front, held his palm out between the steering wheel and her forehead, softening her frustrated blows. She stopped, slumped back in her seat, and finally killed the engine. You slid across the backseat to press up against Clyde, tucking his hair behind his ear as you wracked your brain trying to think of what could be done. 

“How much have the other couple paid the hotel? Do we know?”

Clyde shook his head. “Gotta be a lot - the manager apologised for “any misunderstanding” - tryin’ to make out that Jim and Sylvia got mixed up with the date. They say they got no note of Jimmy’s booking, or any payment he made...”

“But surely Jimmy will have bank statements showing payments - even just the deposit for the venue. It’s been booked since January, February maybe? I remember you telling me when he ponied up the deposit money to secure the date...”

You watched as Clyde raised his head from his hands and Mellie spun in her seat to face him, answering for him. “Yeah, he paid everything up front. In cash. No digital record of his payments.”

“He paid cash? We must be talking thousands of dollars for a place like this - they’ve got a bloody giant fountain in the driveway -“

You didn’t miss the way Clyde slumped in his seat, or how Mellie muttered curses under her breath as you spoke. Something wasn’t right.

From his spot riding shotgun up front beside Mellie, you heard Joe groan and curse. “Are we really doin’ this now? Right here, seriously?”

Mellie hissed, then nodded once at Clyde, spinning back in her seat and kicking her door open, beckoning Joe to follow. Their doors slammed shut, and only Clyde’s shaky exhale switched your attention from their retreating figures back to him. “What’s going on, Clyde?”

The sense of panic that had been rolling off Clyde since he’d climbed inside the car had only intensified once his sister and her boyfriend had left; his knee was jiggling up and down, and he kept pulling his hair back from his face, dragging his fingers through the dark locks so hard you half expected to see clumps of it caught between his fingers. You caught his hand before he could do anymore damage and lifted his arm over your shoulders, tucking yourself close beside him. “Clyde, please tell me... What’s going on?”

It took an eternity for Clyde to start talking; somehow you held your tongue and managed to wait until he found the courage to speak, and when he did you couldn’t bring yourself to dare interrupt. Words spilled from his lips like water through an open dam, and with the words he told the whole tale of Jimmy’s bad knee, the troubles he’d faced holding down a job over the years, Bobbie-Jo’s plans to move out of state with Sadie, which then led to the set of circumstances that encouraged the Logan’s into not only carrying out a lucrative robbery but also getting away with it, each member of the crew ending up with more money than they knew what to do with. 

It dawned on you that everyone you loved in Boone County had been involved in the scheme. You sat in silence once Clyde stopped talking, trying to unscramble and digest his words. You could remember hearing about “The Hillbilly Heist” on the news a couple of summers ago, but it had dropped off the national bulletins quickly once the truck full of money had been recovered a day or two later - “cold feet”, the news anchor had suggested, and little more about it was heard up in Vermont. 

“How much?”

“What?”

“How much did you end up with?”

“More than I’ll ever need on my own.”

“Is that why you bought the house? To get rid of the cash? Is my home just a fucking money laundering scheme to you?”

“Jesus christ, no! Never! It’s our home - I bought it for you, but you made it our home. It’s no scheme, I’d never lie to you ‘bout that - “

“Except you have lied, Clyde, you’ve kept this from me the whole time. Lying by omission is still lying - God almighty can I ever have a conversation with you without crying like a bloody granny at a funeral, jesus!” You wiped angrily at your wet, mascara-streaked face with your fingers, shrugging off Clyde’s offer of a tissue. 

To his credit, Clyde stayed silent, tucking the unwanted tissue back into his jacket pocket while you seethed in the seat beside him. He’d wanted to tell you everything about the Speedway for so long, and he hated that it had all come out now, so poorly, rushed in the backseat of Mellie’s car. As panicked as he’d been that morning, between the wedding disaster and the unforeseen reveal of his criminal past, he hadn’t had a chance to tell you how beautiful you looked, dressed in all your wedding finery, the silver and diamond bangle he’d bought for you last Christmas catching the light as you wiped angry tears from your face.

He cleared his throat awakwardly, and whispered “You... Y’look so beautiful. Shoulda told you before.”

Your head dropped down, your hair falling loose from the silver comb you’d pinned it up with that morning, hiding your face from him completely. He felt an almost forgotten itchy-hot sensation at the base of his spine again, one he hadn’t felt in over six months. A shot of fear, blended with a chaser of loneliness, scratching low in his spine and setting his nerve endings ablaze. He didn’t like it, not one bit, and before he could talk himself out of it he pulled you against his chest, clutching you against him, pressing damp, desperate kisses into your scalp as he whispered and begged for your forgiveness.

For a moment, maybe two, you let yourself be held by him, breathing in his scent through the starched white fabric of his dress shirt, your hands snaking up inside his jacket to palm at his torso as he held you tighter still.

You could almost taste the panic and fear in him, his emotions raw and wild like his chest was split in two. You wanted so much to soothe him, to climb onto his lap and kiss every hint of fear away once and for all, show him that you forgave his secrecy and deceit, that you could forget ever knowing anything about the Speedway scheme, but your own anger forced you to hold back. It wrapped itself around you like a cage, like barbed wire, sharp and dark and threatening, stabbing painfully into you as much as it threatened to push Clyde away. You unwrapped yourself from Clyde’s arms and slid back across the seat away from him, raking through your tiny bag for a mirror as you tidied your make-up, making sure your gaze stayed well away from his honey-brown stare.

“I... I can’t get any of this straight in my head right now Clyde. I don’t know what to say, or how I feel about what you’ve told me. What we need to do, right now, is try to fix Sylvia’s wedding day. We need a new venue. We need food and drink, a band, and we need them now. That’s all I want to think about - everything else has to wait.”

You packed your mascara and mirror back into your bag and opened your car door. You took in deep breaths of fresh morning air, trying desperately to clear your mind of Clyde’s confession. In contrast to the storm building inside the car, the atmosphere outside was peaceful. You shut your eyes and tried to breathe it all in.

“Hey.”

You looked up, meeting Jimmy’s red-rimmed eyes with your own as he, Mellie and Joe approached the car. As smart and handsome as he looked in his new suit, his face was absolutely wrecked, frustration, anger and disappointment spoiling what should have been the happiest day of his life. 

“Hi, Jimmy.”

“Listen, I know you’re mad as hell with us right now, an’ you have every right to be, but I need to make today right for Sylvia, an’ I can’t do that if I’m worried about your reaction to everythin’ Clyde’s told you.”

You bristled at his words. “Are you asking me to keep my mouth shut? Is that where we’re at now?”

“Jesus no, it ain’t like that at all. Is that what you think of me, of all of us? We ain’t _criminal-criminals_ , we wouldn’t do anythin’ like that.”

Joe opened his mouth to contradict Jimmy, only Mellie’s sharp elbow stopping any words from coming out.

Chastened, you shook your head. “I didn’t mean - I know you’re not like that. I’m sorry. It’s just a lot to take in.”

“I know, and we can all sit down together calmly an’ discuss it for as long as you want another day soon, but right now I need to marry my Sylvia an’ I’m gonna need all the help I can get to make that happen. Clyde needs your help too. Are you in? Jus’ for today - tomorrow can be all different if that’s what you want. Will you help me?”

You took a deep breath, swallowing down the shock and anger that had made you push Clyde away, and nodded, taking Jimmy’s offered hand and squeezing it. “I’m in. Let’s get today sorted out, tomorrow can wait.”

Jimmy kissed your cheek, muttering a thank you against your skin before pushing you back inside the car and climbing in beside you. With Mellie and Joe back in their respective seats up front, and Clyde pressed right beside you in the back, the four of you who weren’t driving spent the journey back to Boone County trying to secure a venue, catering, music and a celebrant for the most short-notice wedding the state had ever seen. And by some miracle, some strange collection of twists of fate, luck was finally on the Logan’s side - by the time Mellie’s car swung into her parking spot outside her house in Danville, you’d secured everything Jimmy and Sylvia would need.


	23. Chapter 23

Clyde had never taken a huge amount of notice of Madison’s annual Food and Wine Festival, falling as it always did over two weekends across the end of June and the beginning of July when he was usually too hot and too overwhelmed with a busy bar of his own to pay attention to other things. Over the couple of hours that had passed since the disaster at the original wedding venue, his backseat criminal confessions followed by the journey back to Mellie’s place, he’d become intimately familiar with every organisational detail of the festival. His phone was held hot between his palm and ear as he made call after call to the festival’s board of organisers, desperate to secure access to the site today, the day before it all opened officially for this year’s season, so the Logan’s could hold Jimmy’s wedding there. While first Mellie’s car, and then her house, buzzed around him, everyone busy making their own phone calls and sorting out tasks to throw together a wedding celebration for Jimmy and Sylvia, Clyde let his mind wander to the other issue at hand - how to fix the colossal error he’d made in not opening up and being honest with his girl about his biggest secret.

It had never just been his secret alone, but Jimmy and Mel had long since lost any concerns they may have held in trusting her with the details of the Speedway robbery. Even Joe had come round in time, cautious and careful as he was to avoid yet another spell behind bars, deciding that if Mellie trusted her then he was happy to go along with that - anything for a quiet life. Joe was a difficult man to win over, and Clyde knew that his approval and trust was hard-won, yet somehow she’d managed it. 

It wasn’t as though Clyde didn’t trust her, he’d just been waiting for the right time, but so much time had passed and the right moment had never presented itself. Instead, he’d hurriedly confessed everything in the back of his little sister’s car while his big brother’s wedding day fell apart all around him. What a mess it had all become.

“Clyde, how’re we doin’? I got a coupla food trucks organised, Earl’s got a cousin who got ordained online last year - all legit, he promises, an’ Cissie from the salon’s sister in law’s a florist so she’s going to come down with some posies to decorate the site with.” Mellie checked off her list as she spoke, scoring lines through all of her completed tasks with a thick blue Sharpie.

Clyde cleared his throat, chancing a glance at the woman who’d barely made eye contact with him since they’d all got back to Mel’s house. Damn she was beautiful, even when she was furious. “I uh, I got most of the food festival committee to agree - they’re all set up for opening tomorrow, so as long as we promise t’clear everything up at first light before the gates open then they’re happy to let us use the site. They’ve got two beer trailers and a burger truck ready to use, somethin’ called a ‘gin caravan’, fairground rides all set up, space for a band to play, benches an’ lights too. All they want is a clean site and a donation toward next year’s festival -“

“I’ll donate whatever they want, tell ‘em I’ll send in a blank cheque on Monday mornin’ if it means we can call Sylvia and all the guests and tell them where they need to be”, Jimmy piped up from his spot in the corner of the room where he’d been sat alternately monitoring and approving all the new wedding plans and panicking into a glass of nerve-steadying whisky, convinced everything would continue to fall apart. 

You hung up on the call that had been keeping you occupied for the last twenty minutes, scribbling off the final item on your list. “I’ve got a band - four guys from Charleston, they’ve had a cancellation for another wedding today so they’re free and keen to play and get paid. I just need to send them the address of the fair site and they’ll head over right away to get set up...” Mellie passed you the address and directions to the fair site which you quickly messaged to the band, mouthing a tight thank you her.

In the corner of the room, Jimmy Logan drained his glass and pulled himself upright, dusting down his suit trousers and shrugging his jacket back on. “Well, I think we got ourselves a wedding. Let’s get to it.”

——————

It took a little more than just “getting to it”. While Jimmy went to meet up with Sylvia and calm all her pre-wedding jitters (bad luck be damned, after everything that had gone wrong this morning, this groom was seeing his bride before the altar), and Mellie and Joe stayed home to work their way through the guest list calling everyone to tell them the new time and venue, you and Clyde were dispatched to the fair site to make sure everything was as set up and ready as it could be before the first guests arrived. 

Once in the car, it took Clyde precisely four minutes before he worked up the courage to speak, keeping his eyes fixed on the road ahead as he drove towards the fairground site. “Thank you for helpin’ us today - I think Jimmy woulda fell apart otherwise...”

“What did you think I’d do, leave him hanging? Of course I wanted to help.”

“I jus’ mean... no-one woulda blamed you if you’d -“

You twisted around in the passenger seat to face Clyde - he may not have dared take his eyes from the road ahead but you drank his profile in, trying your best to swallow back any remnants of anger or hurt, at least temporarily. “If what? If I’d bailed on you all? Is that what you think I’d do? Look... I’m shocked, okay, and I’m really, really hurt that you kept this from me for so long - don’t you trust me? Does no-one here trust me?”

“That ain’t it, of course we trust you, an’ I wanted to tell you for a long time, but it just never felt right. We had the court case loomin’, an’ finishing off the degree -“

“That was two months ago.”, you couldn’t help but snap back at him, folding your arms petulantly across your chest, turning back to watch the road ahead.

“Yeah, and then I bought the house an’ you moved, then we went to court, an’ now we’re here.” 

You felt the car lurch as Clyde pushed down angrily on the accelerator, overtaking a meandering pick-up truck while you tried to collect your thoughts. Before you could respond, he slowed the car and turned into the road that led to the fairground site, parking up close to the main gate and switching off the engine. 

“Baby, I know shoulda told you sooner, an’ I shoulda told you in a better way than in a hurry in the back of Mellie’s car. I’m sorry. Truly. You deserved so much better than that.”

“We haven’t got time for better, not today anyway.” You winced inwardly, hating how bratty you sounded and how angry you still felt.

“Don’t mean I won’t try to make things right, an’ I’ll keep tryin’.” He nervously reached to take your hand in his; you could feel his fingers trembling as they wrapped around yours. You squeezed his hand, stroking your thumb against his knuckles in a gesture that you hoped would soothe him a little. Your anger and hurt would take a while to fade, but regardless of that you hated knowing how distressed he felt.

“Forget about it for now... you need to concentrate on getting Jimmy through today in one piece. Let’s go in and check everything’s set up before the band and guests arrive.”

You raised your clasped hands and pressed your lips against the tendons protruding from the back of his hand, wiping away with your free fingers the lipstick stain your lips left behind. “Later on, once the ceremony is over and we’ve all had some food and a drink, and Jimmy and Sylvia are dancing and happy, come find me then and we’ll talk properly somewhere quiet, okay? Just us.”

For the first time that day Clyde let himself feel a little glimmer of hope, a tiny spark glowing somewhere close to his heart. “I’d like that, I’d like that a lot.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do. But first, we’ve got a wedding to fix.”


	24. Chapter 24

The brief reassuring moment you’d shared in the car with Clyde dissipated almost as soon as you stepped through the gate that led into the fair grounds and discovered just how much there was to organise in so little time. While Clyde set to work dragging and arranging a small mountain of wooden benches into something resembling rows and an aisle for the ceremony, you tried to coordinate the small handful of people who had been summoned by the festival’s board to arrive a day early and run the food trucks. After giving the team the number of guests and making a wild and uneducated guess on whether there would be any special dietary requirements, they set to work cooking up “funfair food”, a quick ‘n dirty wedding dinner that would hopefully keep every guest full and satisfied enough to not question the last-minute venue change.

Once the catering was organised, you went back to the gate to meet the florist, Cadence, a blue-haired older lady with mischievous eyes and two huge cardboard boxes at her feet.

“I can’t stay, sorry, but I wanted to deliver these flowers myself. They’re all random loose stems and off-cuts I’m afraid – no time to arrange anything more special, but I’ve put some wire, some ribbon, some other bits ‘n pieces in there for you to have fun with. Should be enough to make some posies for the end of each row, and a couple of bunches for the main table…”

You blinked down at the boxes once you’d carried them to the area Clyde had chosen for the ceremony, each one bursting with off-cuts of purple heather, gypsophila, lush green fern leaves and assorted greenery. In the second box you found two half-wrapped arrangements of pale roses bound with lavender and more of the fern leaves from the first box; you gathered the two bouquets (if you could call them that) and plonked them into two of the plain white Ikea vases Mellie had been wise enough to give to you to bring to the site. With a bit of water and sunshine the bouquets would perk up and, hopefully, bloom nicely on the table. Once the bouquets were safe from dehydration you worked quickly to gather up the remaining stems of heather, fern and Baby’s breath into little posies you could tie to the end of each row of benches, each little bunch wrapped with florist’s twine. 

While you had been busy with the food and flowers, Clyde had set up the benches into rows for the guests and hooked up the loaned PA system so the ceremony would be heard. The area he’d picked for the ceremony was hidden behind the small number of fairground rides at the opposite end of the field from the food trucks, a flat area of ground temporarily covered with wooden floor panels that would be used as a dance floor for most of the festival. While the guests mingled and ate after the ceremony, Clyde and Joe would drag the benches to the perimeter of the wooden floor, leaving enough space under the lengths of fairylights which were strung above for people to dance to the band his girl had managed to find. Outside of the food trucks a number of picnic tables had been laid out in preparation for the festival, and once he was happy with the layout of his benches Clyde had rushed to lay out little white candles in glass holders on each table – not exactly the most glamorous of centerpieces but he knew they’d look nice once the sun set. 

“Guests’ll start arriving soon.” 

Clyde nodded before looking back over his shoulder at his girl while she added little stems of something purple and floral to each of the candle holders. “Yup, Mellie and Joe’ll be here soon too I reckon, Jimmy not too far behind.”

You finished fiddling with the final sprig of heather shook your fingers through your tousled hair, trying to straighten yourself up into looking more like a wedding guest and less like a wedding planner. “How’s your speech? Have you had time to practice?”

You didn’t like the way Clyde’s nose wrinkled at the mention of his best man’s speech, a sure sign he wasn’t feeling one hundred percent comfortable with it. 

“Wasn’t much time to practice in between this morning an’ now. I’ll just… fly by the seat of my pants I guess.”

“You can do this, Clyde. You’ll be fine".

“Maybe. We’ll see.”

There was no time to say anything more – Mellie, Joe and Jimmy appeared, closely followed by Earl and someone you hoped was the celebrant. While the Logan’s huddled together and worked out the final fixings to the hastily-arranged day before Sylvia and her parents arrived, you busied yourself with checking the flowers one last time, giving yourself a few moments peace to go over the events of an already hectic day.

\------------

There were things that you knew for certain: 

Clyde loved you. 

Clyde had been lying to you since you met. 

Clyde had a lot of money ( _a lot_ ) hidden away somewhere, some of it invested in your house and the rest… you had no idea. 

The whole family, and associated adjacents, had been involved in not only the original scheme, but they’d been complicit in keeping it a secret.

However, you also knew that Clyde had worried himself sick over revealing this part of himself (and by association, the whole family) to you. You also knew that where his brain should have been filled with reassuring himself over his best man’s speech, instead he was tying himself in knots trying to convince himself that you weren’t about to run out on him. You hadn’t done a very good job of making him believe that wasn’t possible.

Suddenly unsure of how you fit within the small group, you cautiously made you way over to the circle of Logan’s, hovering a little behind Clyde while Jimmy listened to the instructions Sylvia was confirming with him over the phone.

“I’m fifteen minutes away Jim, and if you think I’m gonna be late to my own wedding you got another thing comin’. You better be there.” Her voice was excited and shrill through the phone’s speaker.

“I’m right here sweetheart. Ain’t nowhere else I wanna be.” Jimmy’s smile was wide and bright enough to eclipse the already bright sun that shone down over the festival grounds. 

“You got fifteen minutes of freedom left, Jim. I’ll see y’all soon. Bye!”

Mellie squeezed her eldest brother’s arm excitedly once his phone was safely stowed away in his pocket, ignoring the sudden screech coming through the PA system as the band started their designated five-minute soundcheck. “We should all go sit an’ wait for the blushin’ bride…” She held out her hand towards you, beckoning you with her fingers. “Come sit up top by me while the boys go do their thing.”

You glanced awkwardly between Mellie, Jimmy and Clyde. “Isn’t it just family up front?”

Clyde’s heavy sigh was as pained as it was exasperated. “Baby, you _are_ family. Y’always have been to me.”

He stalked off towards the head of the makeshift aisle with Jimmy before you could respond, only Mellie’s hand on your arm stopping you from racing through the other guests to catch up with Clyde.

“Don’t fret. He’s just freakin’ out over doin’ the speech an’ – “

“And the way I reacted, earlier.”

“No, not – “

You rolled your eyes, and Mellie gave up any pretence. “Okay yes, he’s freakin’ out over how you reacted earlier. But he’s also freakin' out about the speech, so don’t go takin’ all the credit for his dark mood. He’ll come out of it.”

“I need to talk to him.”

“An’ you will. After the ceremony. Please, after everything that’s happened today, let’s just get the rings on Jim an’ Syl’s fingers and then you an’ Clyde can go get straightened out.”

You took your seat beside Joe and Mellie in the row behind Jimmy and Clyde, the brothers huddled together in a conversation of their own as the band’s soundcheck ended and the celebrant took her place at the head of the aisle. With a nod to the band, she tapped twice on Duck Tape’s karaoke microphone and gestured for everyone to stand. “Ladies an’ gentlemen, please be upstanding for the bride!”

\------------

Jimmy hadn’t taken his eyes off Sylvia from the moment she appeared at the foot of the aisle to when they returned to the floor after dinner and the speeches for their first dance as man and wife. Had you not witnessed the wild, blind panic that had filled most of the morning and early afternoon, you’d have thought the whole day had been planned months in advance; everything had gone perfectly from the moment Sylvia had arrived. The celebrant had conducted the ceremony with humour and grace, the band had played for the newlyweds with a selection of songs you knew both Jimmy and Sylvia loved, the “fairground food” dinner had gone down a treat with all the guests, and the hectic day had faded into a warm, love-filled evening as the guests milled around with snacks, drinks and dancing to keep them entertained.

As the sun began to set over the woods that surrounded the festival site, the fairylights strung above the dance floor illuminating the whole space with a warm, magical glow, the band broke into a well-rehearsed cover of Dobie Gray’s “Drift Away” as Jimmy and Sylvia spun around, oblivious to everyone else. After a few moments Sylvia’s parents joined the newlyweds on the floor, followed by Joe and Mellie, and soon the space was filled with couples swaying and sharing the song. You scanned the guests who had gathered at the perimeter of the floor to watch the dance, hoping to catch Clyde’s eye, but he was nowhere to be seen. He’d been there just a moment before, up on the stage and mumbling into the microphone to introduce “ _the new Mister and Missus Logan_ ”, but now as the song began to fade and the guests applauded Jimmy and Sylvia, you couldn’t find him. 

You hadn’t felt this alone since Vermont.

Before you could press out and away from the gathered guests to find a dark spot to quietly freak out in, a large hand wrapped around your left elbow and a gruff, familiar voice filled your ear. 

“He’s out behind the food trucks lookin’ like his face’ll trip him. I’m thinkin’ he could do with someone to talk to.” 

Earl. Kind, brilliant Earl. You pressed a quick kiss to his bristly cheek and ran across the festival site, skipping between guests and benches, squeezing yourself between two of the food trucks and out into an almost silent, barely lit, open space. Sat on the ground at the furthest point from you, leaning against a tilted fencepost, you spotted Clyde, just as Earl had promised. The heels you’d been wearing all day were sinking into the soft ground, so you kicked them off where you stood and tiptoed over to where Clyde sat, curling yourself up on the ground beside him. Without a word, Clyde raised his right arm and wrapped it around your shoulders, pulling you tight against his body.

“I’m so sorry Clyde, I’ve ruined your brother’s wedding. You’ve been so excited about today for so long and I’ve spoiled it.”

He squeezed you a little tighter, and you felt him shaking his head in disagreement. “You didn’t ruin anythin’. M’angry at myself, not you. Shoulda explained everythin’ a long time ago, you never shoulda found out the way you did.”

It was your turn to disagree, pulling yourself back from Clyde’s body just enough so you could turn to face him, removing his arm from your shoulder so you could cling to his hand with yours. “I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did – the way I always do…”

“What d’you mean?” His voice was soft, and had lost the ragged, anxious edge that had plagued him all day.

“You know… the way I let my own fears and insecurities get the better of me, or I second-guess and come to the wrong conclusions…”

Clyde seemed confounded by your words. “Wait a second, are you seriously trying to apologise for reacting when I told you about the – “ 

He lowered his voice;

“– when I told you about the you-know-what? What the hell do you have to apologise for? You were right – I did lie, the whole time. I kept everythin’ about it from you because I was scared.”

You stroked his hand softly, squinting your eyes just enough to focus on his face in the light flickering between the food trucks, coming from the fairylights and lanterns strung around the dance floor on the other side of the grounds. “Did you think if you told me I’d rat you all out, like I’d go to the police or the FBI or whoever?”

He shook his head again, brushing his hair back from his face with his left hand while you clung to his right. “Never, not once. I was scared you’d think less of me, that you’d want nothin’ more to do with me.”

He let his words hang in the air, dropping his head slightly, his voice trembling as he pieced his next words together carefully. “I coulda coped with being alone for the rest of my life if we’d never met – I’d have just carried on like I always had, an’ it woulda been okay… but since bein’ with you, loving you this whole time, I… I can’t go back to being alone. Now I know what it’s like, I can’t bear the idea of you, of you not…” 

You reached for him, stroking your thumb against his cheekbone as you guided his head up to face you once more. Tears swum in his eyes, more gathering each time he tried to blink them back until he gave up holding them in and just let them fall. You kissed each trail his tears left behind, pulling him to you and holding him tight against your body, whispering soft words of reassurance as he wept into your shoulder.

“Sweetheart, you don’t have to go back to feeling that way, not ever. Neither of us do. You’ve got me, and I’m here, and I’m here because I want to be…” You kissed the spot just below his ear that you loved best, letting him hold you to him until his tears stopped and his breathing steadied. You waited until he sat back a little, wiping his cheeks dry with your thumbs and pressing a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth before you spoke again.

“God, if Claudia – one of my friends in Vermont, probably my only proper friend there, actually –, if she was here now, she’d be rolling her eyes and telling me to ‘use my words’, so I will. I love you; I love you so bloody much it makes my head spin and my chest feel like it’ll burst. Every morning when you come out of the shower with your hair all damp and then make me coffee and bring it to me in bed, I have to pinch myself to make sure this is all real, that you’re actually here and in my life and really-real, you know? I have to check and make sure that I’m not day-dreaming about our life together because it feels so _right_. Does that make any sense, or am I rambling?”

He grinned and nodded. “It makes sense. I feel it too.”

You blushed, then continued. “I love you more than any secret, and more than any amount of self-doubt or fear can get in the way of. Can we start again? No more secrets, and no more reacting the way I always do.”

“You can react to anythin' any way you want, I promise. If you’ll have me, I won’t give you anythin’ bad like this to react to again. I give you my word on that.”

“'If I’ll have you?' Clyde, I’ll always have you. Always.”

He kissed you, washing away any remnants of the anger, worry, confusion or fear that had haunted both your days like a spectre. You kissed him back and let him pull you up onto his lap, yanking your dress up to your knees so you could more easily kneel over him before losing your fingers in his hair, your lips in his kiss, your body wrapped up tight in his hold. There was nowhere else you ever wanted to be, and you murmured it against his lips, his jaw, his cheek and his ear. “You’re it for me, Clyde Logan. I was yours before we ever set eyes on each other.”

He gazed up at you, drunk on a heady cocktail of relief, joy and love as your words hit home. “I’ve wanted you my whole life. There was a while there, way back when I was a kid, when I hated who I was an’ I thought I wanted to be different, or be someone else entirely, or maybe just be less like me an’ more like Jimmy, but that was wrong. I was just missin’ someone I hadn’t met yet. But then last year I got matched up to work on a college project with this smart, funny, independent, strong, brilliant woman – “

You squirmed against him, wrinkling your nose as you giggled, “It was a bit more than just a college project – “

Clyde poked you playfully in the side, kissing your collarbone before he continued. “Hey, I’m tryin’ to be romantic here, lemme finish… As I was sayin’, I got paired up to work on a _dissertation_ with this rudely interruptin’, feisty doll who made my brain short-circuit, but she also made me happier than I’d ever been. It’s like somethin’ snapped into place, where it always shoulda been, the day we got matched, an’ now I don’t ever want that to change. Marry me. M’not sayin’ it’ll be flowers an’ romance every day of the week from now til the day we die, I know there’ll be times when we drive each other crazy, but darlin’ you’re the only person I ever want drivin’ me crazy. Marry me.”

“Do… do you really mean that? All of it?”

“Never meant anythin’ more.”

There was no hint of doubt in your mind. You’d never felt so certain of anything as you did at that moment, wrapped safe Clyde’s arms as his proposal hung in the air. You nodded quickly, your smile split wide across your face as you answered “yes”, clinging tighter to him and kissing all the way from the corner of his mouth to his ear, whispering your assent between every press of your lips against his skin. 

The kisses you shared started as joyous, excited and eager, evolving into something far hungrier and deeper. As the zip at the back of your dress was dragged down and open, so too were the buttons on Clyde’s dress shirt, the two of you desperate to feel as much skin as possible. His broad hands, both flesh and not, spanned your back, tracing his fingertips teasingly over your overheated skin as his tongue worked against your collarbone. You busied yourself with pulling his shirt out from his waistband and pushing the fabric as far from his body as his otherwise engaged arms would allow, pulling your loosened dress down from your body to your waist as you pressed yourself against his chest.

You tore your attention away from Clyde to look over his shoulder, back toward the food trucks, guests and dance floor beyond. “Won’t someone see…?”

“Not if we move. Hold on.” Summoning strength you weren’t convinced Clyde even realised he had, he somehow got himself to his feet with you carried in his arms, your legs around his waist as he held you tight against him, shielding your exposed body from view as he staggered across the empty field towards the line of trees that surrounded the grounds. You couldn’t help but giggle as he kissed you hard, pressing you up against the first trunk he found that didn’t look rough enough to shave a horse.

Clyde paused in his attempt at sucking a hickey below your collarbone when he heard your giggle, angling his upper body back just enough so his eyes could get a fix on you. “What’re you laughin’ at?”

“I must be a real country girl now Clyde, getting fucked against a tree at a summer wedding like this…”

“Y’ain’t been fucked yet...”

“You’re working on it…?”

“I am.” 

You almost _groaned_ at the sound of his belt buckle clinking open, his zipper being pulled down, his suit trousers falling down around his ankles as he pressed against you more. For the first time that night he reached down, under the fabric of your dress, to pull aside the thin scrap of fabric you liked to wear on special occasions, but his wandering fingers found nothing between them and your slick, smooth cunt.

“You been wearin’ nothin’ under your dress like this all day?” His voice was deep and hoarse with need.

“Mmmhmm. Nothing worse than VPL at a wedding.”

“I ain’t got no idea what that is, but right now I don’t care.” He pushed up towards you, his thick length easily breaching inside as he dropped you just enough to let gravity slide you down fully onto him. For a moment he didn’t move, content to press his face against your neck as your limbs held him tighter, your muscles throbbing all around him as he tried to calm his racing heart and wild libido, every cell in his body screaming at him to move, to take you, to make you his.

“I’m yours, Clyde. Always have been, always will be.” Your voice was soft, warm, laced with love and lust as you felt him begin to move within you, his lips mouthing kisses against your bare shoulder. 

You knew this wouldn’t last long, both of you desperate to build all of the wild and varied emotions of the day and night into something solid and real and _yours_. You bit gently against his ear lobe when he hit a spectacularly sensitive spot deep inside you, and he returned the gesture against your neck when your body contracted around him _just right_ , causing him to moan loudly, knowing there was no-one else nearby to overhear. He placed his hands between your bare back and the tree trunk to protect your skin from being scratched raw by the bark when his thrusts became more intense, and when he managed to bring the two of you to an urgent, shared climax he kept his dark eyes wide open, his gaze fixed on yours, baring himself to you more intimately then he ever had before. 

He carefully steadied you on shaky legs, holding you until he was certain you wouldn’t topple over. The two of you re-dressed each other as best you could, stealing warm kisses between buttons being tied or zips being pulled up. Once you were both presentable again, he pressed you back against the tree and kissed you again, softly, tenderly, stroking your face as though he was trying to stop you from evaporating in front of his eyes. Once he was happy, certain that you were solid and real and _his_ , he gently ran his thumb over your bottom lip as he spoke.

“Will you marry me?”

“You already asked me, Clyde.”

“An’ I’m asking again. Will you marry me?”

“Yes, I will. A thousand times.”

His smile was wide and infectious, excitement bubbling in both your chests as the enormity of your decision hit.

“I love you, RobertaSparrow.”

“And I love you too, mister DuckTapeWV. I really should have guessed that WV was your home state, shouldn’t I?”

He took your hand and led you out of the woods and back towards the celebrations. “I mean, it is pretty obvious…”

You poked his chest accusingly. “You gonna be this mean when I’m your wife?”

“Worse, probably.” He winked.

“Do we still get to do stuff like this when we’re married…?” You jerked your thumb back towards the line of trees you’d emerged from.

“Baby, ain’t nothin’ changin’ there just cos we’ll have rings on our fingers, I promise.” He pulled your linked hands up to his mouth and kissed each of your fingers, his desire for you clear even in what remained of the evening light.

You glanced over at the guests and dance floor as you squeezed between the food trucks again, back in the festival grounds. You could see Jimmy and Sylvia dancing again, the band playing something loud and raucous as the guests, family, bride and groom celebrated. “Clyde, they probably wouldn’t mind if we…”

“If we went home, right now, an’ go straight to bed, an’ don’t come out again for at least three days?”

“Yeah. That’s exactly what I was gonna say.”

“Good plan, baby. Let’s go home.”

So you did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Boyz II Men voice*  
>  _Now that we've come, to the eeeeeend of the roooooooooad..._
> 
> Did I just complete a fic? Yes, I think I did.
> 
> I can't say for certain that this is the end-end - I may well be tempted by an epilogue or something, but this is certainly the main story tied up with a ribbon and left for each of you brilliant, lovely, kind readers. I can't thank you enough for your comments, clicks and kudos - I never realised how encouraging and important they were until I started writing as well as reading, and I promise I'll do my best to leave comments and kudos as often as AO3's mechanics will allow me going forward. A million thanks have to go out to "Rebecca Blunt", aka Jules Asner, who wrote Logan Lucky and brought a certain enigmatic barman into our lives. 
> 
> And now I will hit preview, check for as many typos and grammar issues as my tired eyes can find at half past midnight, and then post this final chapter. It's been real.


End file.
